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Plane Crash Mars Naval Celebration
A Su-24M bomber crashed yesterday at the main base of the Baltic Fleet in the city of Balstiisk during Naval Fleet Day celebrations attended by Defense Minister and First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov. In spite of the emergency, three other bombers did not return immediately to the base, as they were supposed to. One of them was only able to land on the second attempt.
The festivities, which Ivanov observed from aboard the flagship destroyer Perservering, included a naval parade and parachute competitions, with an airshow as the finale. Four Su-24M bombers from the military base at Chernyakhovsk took part in the airshow. They had rehearsed two days in advance. The planes took off at 12:55 p.m. As the planes were heading for the area in which they were to perform, one of them, piloted by Col. Viktor Poshekhontsev and Lieut. Col. Boris Sedov strayed off course and crashed into the earth. That plane disappeared from radar screens at 1:35 and a search party was immediately launched. The organizers of the show decided to contravene procedure and allow the other three planes to perform. At 2:10, Baltic Fleet search helicopters found wreckage in woods near the village of Medovoe, Bagrationovsky District, 25 km. southwest of Kaliningrad and 3 km. from the Russian-Polish border. Both pilots died in the crash.
Ivanov was informed of the crash after the airshow. He cancelled a planned briefing for journalists, explaining that tragedy had struck the holiday. He ordered an investigation, expressed sympathy for the families of the victims and traveled o the site of the crash in person.
Naval Fleet Day is frequently overshadowed by disaster. Last year, rehearsals involving a training mine almost sunk the parade's flagship Indomitable in the Neva River in St. Petersburg the day before the holiday. The ship was disabled. A number of officers were disciplined in relation to the incident and base commander Adm. Vladimir Kudryavtsev was forced to resign.
Nikolay Sergeev
All the Article in Russian as of July 31, 2006
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