Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko has hailed the two pilots that died in a military aircraft crash near Minsk on May 19 as heroes after they steered the plane away from residential buildings.

Eyewitness footage filmed in the immediate aftermath of the crash in Baranovichi shows the aircraft's downed wreckage strewn across a grassy area.

According to local media, the pilots were able to take the jet away from residential areas towards a small, empty plot of land after the Yak-130 jet's control systems malfunctioned. Both pilots were killed in the crash.

"The pilots did not eject. As the flight recorders suggest, they fought to the end," Lukashenko was quoted as saying by BelTA, Belarus’ largest news agency. "It was just that one of them was thrown away by an ejector when the jet hit the ground. They fought to the end, knowing that the time was not on their side. They realized that had the aircraft fallen on residential areas, it would have been a disaster. Two heroic people died.”

From the video, you can understand how far the fragments of the plane flew from each other and how accurately the plane was aimed: at a very small patch of land between residential buildings.

During the training flight, the crew discovered a technical malfunction. Having shown courage and heroism, the pilots tried to take the plane away from the settlement. Making sure that the trajectory of the plane's fall was outside the residential buildings, the pilots ejected. Unfortunately, both pilots were killed.

It is noted that there are no other victims, no destruction either.