And it happened again. This time I got into the aircraft (as that’s what the menu on the right told me to do). There were no instructions after that, so I briefly pressed the button to skip (didn’t even hold it) and the mission instantly failed… and the game crashed to desktop.
Gave it one final shot, and it happened a third time.
I guess this plane is a crew only plane, and can’t be used by the player in missions.