Russian aviation blogger Pavel Koshkin was killed when the Alto NG aircraft he was flying crashed near Kolomna, southeast of Moscow, in an incident that Russian news outlet Mediazona reported may have involved a case of mistaken identity by Russian air defenses.
According to Mediazona, the aircraft went down on March 20, 2026, near the bank of the Oka River, killing two people on board. Russia’s emergency ministry confirmed the crash, while Rosaviatsiya, the country’s civil aviation authority, opened an investigation but had not announced a preliminary cause as of March 26.
Mediazona identified Koshkin, 39, as the pilot of the ultralight aircraft. Koshkin was a well-known aviation blogger and private pilot who ran a YouTube channel focused on light aircraft flying. The second person killed was identified only as Vadim, according to the report.
The report said officials had not publicly stated what brought the aircraft down, but discussion inside Russia’s aviation community quickly centered on the possibility that air defense forces mistook the ultralight for a Ukrainian drone and fired on it. Mediazona said the crash occurred during a period when authorities in Moscow and the surrounding region were reporting large numbers of drone sightings and interceptions.
Mediazona cited Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels, aviation figures, and online forum discussions that advanced the air-defense theory.
Mediazona also pointed to analysis of crash images published by Russian emergency officials, saying damage on the left side of the aircraft appeared consistent with what would be expected by a hit from a surface-to-air missile.
Mediazona reported that Alexey Rogozin, head of the Russian Union of Aircraft Manufacturers, said areas where civilian light aircraft and air-defense systems operate at the same time create a “zone of uncertainty” if authorities cannot reliably distinguish legal civilian traffic from unidentified aerial targets.
