According to the Armenian Defence Ministry, the plane disappeared from radars at 10.20 a.m. local time (06.20 GMT), just fifteen minutes after leaving an airfield in the city of Gyumri for a scheduled training mission.

"The jet crashed in the mountains near the town of Maralik", a press secretary of the Armenian Defence Ministry Artsrun Hovhannisyan told journalists Tuesday.

He later stated on Facebook that the scene of the tragic event had been discovered, adding that both pilots — Lieutenant Colonel Armen Babayan and Major Movses Manukyan — had died.

At present, there is no official information about the possible causes of the incident.