MOSCOW. Sept 17 (Interfax-AVN) - Two IL-76 Candid military transports have returned from Libya to Russia, the Russian Air Force press-service told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
"The IL-76, carrying Russian peacekeepers and reporters, landed at a military airfield outside Tver at 3:00 a.m. Moscow time (2300 GMT). The second IL-76 landed at the Chkalovsky airfield outside Moscow several hours later at 7:15 a.m. Moscow time (0315 GMT)," a press-service official said.
He explained that the first aircraft, which had previously been repaired by a maintenance crew from Russia, had delivered Russian servicemen and reporters, while the second aircraft, which had brought from Tripoli necessary spare parts, had returned to its departure airfield - Chkalovsky.
The Air Force Staff said that the IL-76 aircraft, carrying 12 crewmembers, 13 Russian reporters, and 29 Russian servicemen from the helicopter unit, attached to the UN mission in Sierra Leone, landed in Tripoli on September 10. When the IL-76 was inspected on the ground, a failure of the starboard power plant pump was detected.
A maintenance crew flew in Tripoli, which hosted the failed aircraft, on an IL-76 military transport on Monday night.
Both aircraft returned to Russia after the malfunction had been rectified.
Most of the personnel of the Russian helicopter unit left Sierra Leone for Moscow on an IL-62 Classic passenger airliner in the morning of September 11, pending the rotational procedure.
The Russian helicopter unit, assigned to UN peacekeeping forces, has been in Sierra Leone since August 2000. It comprises 115 pilots and technicians, as well as four MI-24 Hind gunships.