A Russian Ka-29 helicopter has crashed in the Baltic Sea on Thursday 12 April. The incident occurred while practicing deck landings at night on the Navy’s new landing ship Ivan Gren. That reports flot.com. Both pilots died in the crash.

Ivan Gren is still undergoing sea trials. Official commissioning by the navy is planned for next month, and the Yantar shipyard does not expect the accident to delay the process. The ship did not receive damages from the crash.

It would be fair to call Ivan Gren a troubled project. Works on the ship started in 2004, and delivery has been delayed many times. The ship was launched in 2012, and sea trials began in 2016.

A problem with the ship’s astern propulsion has proven particularly difficult to remedy. Apparently it is challenging to control the ship’s movements while going astern. On the next ship in the series, Petr Morgunov, the shipyard will change the direction of rotation on the propellers to see if that helps. If the reversed rotation gives better manageability, it will be changed on Ivan Gren as well.

The Russian Navy has decided not to order more ships of the Ivan Gren class than the two already under construction.