The solemn ceremony of seeing off the Russian pilots took place at the Antalya airport
MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/. Representatives of the Antalya province administration thanked the pilots of the Russian Defense Ministry for their help in extinguishing forest fires in the country. This was reported on Thursday in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
"Representatives of the administration of the Turkish province of Antalya thanked the aviation crews of the Russian Defense Ministry for their assistance in extinguishing forest fires on the territory of the Republic of Turkey. The solemn ceremony of seeing off the Russian pilots took place at the airport of the city of Antalya," the message reads.
The Ministry of Defense recalled that four Il-76 military transport aircraft equipped with VAP-42 overflow aviation devices and three Mi-8 helicopters of army aviation equipped with APU-5 spillway devices participated in helping Turkey to localize wildfires.
"In the near future, the crews of Il-76 military transport aircraft and Mi-8 transport and combat helicopters will have to fly to the territory of the Russian Federation and return to their permanent deployment points after completing tasks on the territory of the Republic of Turkey," the ministry said.
The crews of aircraft and helicopters of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Turkey made 179 fire-fighting sorties and carried out 455 water discharges with a total weight of about 7.5 thousand tons.