On the morning of 1 July 2016, an Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft configured for aerial firefighting and belonging to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations crashed near Lake Baikal northeast of Irkutsk in Siberia, Russia.

The day the aircraft was found, the aviation division of the Russian forestry agency stated that an area of more than 45,000 hectares (450 km2; 170 sq mi) of forest in Siberia was alight, while Greenpeace's Russian arm stated that, based on its interpretation of satellite data, almost ten times this area was burning just in the Irkutsk region.

[1] The aircraft involved was an Ilyushin Il-76 four-engine freighter fitted out for aerial firefighting, with manufacturer's serial number 1033417553 and registration RA-76840; it was almost 22 years old.

[3] The Ilyushin Il-76 took off from Runway 12 at Irkutsk International Airport not long after sunrise at 06:18 local time, on a mission to fight forest fires.

[citation needed] The high temperatures combined with the low visibility from the thick smoke and trees made the operations difficult, especially for ground units.

[5] The aircraft was found near the village of Uyan in the Kachugsky District, about 150 miles (240 km) northeast of where contact with it was lost, burnt out except for the rear fuselage and tail.

[6] The Chairman of the Interstate Aviation Committee Sergei Yakimenko also commented on the incident, citing that human, equipment, and environmental factors may have all contributed to the crash.