MOSCOW. March 5 (Interfax-AVN) - Aviation of the Interior Ministry Forces has not had a single flight accident in the past 14 months.
"Throughout 2003 and in the first two months of 2004 all fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, operated by the Interior Ministry Forces aviation, carried out sorties without any flight accidents. First and foremost, this fact attests to thorough preparation for each flight and high professional skills of flight personnel," Lieutenant General Yury Pylnev, deputy commander-in-chief of the Interior Ministry Forces aviation, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
He said that given close air support flights in the interests of the Combined Federal Force in the North Caucasus, the intensity of combat missions, carried out by the Interior Ministry Forces aviation, is quite high. "Our helicopter pilots discharge a wide scope of missions in the North Caucasus and Chechnya from close air support of convoys to medevac operations," the general noted.
He also emphasized that aviators had managed to considerably increase the flying time, logged by flight crews.
"At the moment a flying time per pilot in our aviation totals 83 hours, while that per flight crews amounts to almost 100 hours," Pylnev stressed.