Another Tu-95MS Bear H has crashed. Initial reports state that the crew got out.
Good news, that bolded bit.
Tu-95MS bombers crashed when performing routine training flight 80 km from Khabarovsk at 09:50 Moscow time, the Russian Defense Ministry informs.
All of us have lost friends and comrades in arms to a "routing training flight." These aircrew are our brothers in spirit, in the profession.
"These old aircraft require a lot of maintenance, and the spare parts
currently in stock are old," Kozyulin said ..
back in the 90's, during a significantly austere budgetary time when O&M funs kept getting diverted to Clintonian "OOTW" missions all over the world, our own P-3 fleet had non trivial problems with spare parts to keep the birds flying.
As someone noted above, money is behind a lot of this. The old teaching point when I was instructing novice Navy pilots:
Instructor: "What makes the aircraft fly?"
Student: "Lift, which we generate based on airspeed ... "
Instructor (pulls a dollar bill out of flight suit pocket, drops the fill and watches it float to the floor) "Without money, the aircraft doesn't fly."
(Winks or grins at student).