Ukraine blames 'negligence' of military as it buries victims of worst air show disaster

A nation in mourning, Ukraine yesterday began burying 83 people killed when a fighter jet sliced into a crowd of spectators at an airshow. Black ribbons flew from flagpoles nationwide.

The country's top prosecutor General Sviatoslav Piskun said the Su-27 had been flying too low before Saturday's crash in the western city of Lviv, and that organisers shouldn't have allowed stunts to be performed directly over spectators.

Yesterday the Defence Ministry banned all flights by warplanes, except for those on basic military duty. Ukraine's air force commander and a top officer have been detained, the plane's two pilots are under investigation and the Defence Minister has submitted his resignation because of the crash.

"It was military negligence," General Piskun told reporters in the capital, Kiev. "Also there were signs of criminal actions by pilots. They used this vehicle incorrectly."

He said other possible causes were also being investigated, including mechanical failure of the 15-year-old plane or terrorism. He said the two pilots had originally been planning to use another Su-27 for the show but it was replaced at the last minute.

Yevhen Marchuk, head of the commission investigating the accident, said that the pilots had not been able to explain why the accident happened. He saidbirds may have been in the flight zone.

The jet had been performing a manoeuvre at low altitude when it nicked the ground, sliced off the nose of a plane on the tarmac and roared through a crowd of hundreds of spectators before exploding in a ball of fire. Of the 83 killed, 23 were children, and 116 people were injured. The pilots ejected and survived.

Thirty-four funerals were held yesterday and more were planned for today in and around Lviv. Yesterday, family members and survivors sang songs and recited prayers led by Ukrainian Orthodox clerics at a ceremony at the Sknyliv air base. Flowers were strewn around the singed turf.

Raisa Volodymyrova, who had been standing next to the plane that was damaged on the ground, said tearfully at the ceremony: "There were piles and piles of people around me. There was a body of a child lying on me."