Fighter Jet Crashes after Repairs
A Russian Air Force Su-27 fighter jet crashed yesterday in Maritime Territory. One of its pilots, deputy squadron commander Maj. Sergey Levchenko, was killed. His body was found in the wreckage. The other pilot, Col. Yury Abrosimov, parachuted to safety. The preliminary cause of the crash was technical malfunction. The plane was on a test flight after repairs. It took off from the Vozdvizhenka airbase, site of a Defense Ministry airplane refurbishment plant specializing in Sukhoi models, near Ussuriisk and crashed 2 km. away soon after takeoff. There was no damage or injuries on the ground.
A commission has been set up to investigate the causes of the crash. Both pilots were military pilots first class; Levchenko had 700 hours flight time and Abrosimov had 1000 hours. The last accident involving a Russian Air Force Su-27 was on September 15, 2005, when a craft piloted by deputy squadron commander Maj. Valery Troyanov crashed in Sakiai District in Lithuania, near the border with Kaliningrad Region due to a failure of navigation systems. The pilot parachuted to safety and was placed under house arrest in Lithuania until cleared of charges of violating international flight rules in October 2005. An Su-27 crashed in Maritime Territory in March 2002 outside Vladivostok. The pilot, Capt. Alexander Tsvetkov, parachuted from the plane.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 30, 2008
|
