"In carrying out a planned flight over the eastern regions of the Syrian Arab Republic, the Russian Ka-52 helicopter crashed," the [military department] said in a statement.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the death of both pilots. The search and rescue team delivered the bodies of the dead pilots to the airfield of the basing.
"According to preliminary information, the cause of the incident could be a technical malfunction," the military department of the Russian Federation said.
According to the official version, the helicopter could crash due to a technical malfunction, unofficial - it was knocked down by radical Islamists from the MANPADS during a scheduled flight. Both pilots were killed. The catastrophe was the seventh for Russian helicopters and the first for the Ka-52s involved in the Syrian campaign since March 2016.