Last Thursday, the Syrian Arab News Agency SANA reported a serious incident with a military helicopter belonging to the Ministry of Defense of this country.
The disaster happened during the exercise. The crew, due to a technical malfunction on board, made a hard landing in a mountainous area with difficult terrain. As a result, two servicemen were killed and three were injured. Judging by the posted photo, the rotorcraft burned down almost completely.
According to military expert Yuri Lyamin, at first it was not known what type of helicopter crashed in the province of Latakia. Different sources gave contradictory information. According to some sources, a combat Mi-24 was lost, according to others - Mi-8 or Mi-17.
However, a video was later released that captured how events unfolded. Judging by it, the trouble happened to the Mi-14 amphibian. During the task, the turntable began to rotate around its axis, and then sat down on a mountain slope. After a while, a strong fire started, destroying the helicopter.
"Currently, there are very few "fourteenth" left in Syria. The machines that are in flight condition can be counted on the fingers of one hand," Lyamin said.
Indeed, there were only six of these helicopters created on the basis of the famous Mi-8 in 2016. Due to the losses suffered by the flight fleet during the civil war and the repulse of foreign terrorist aggression, the Syrians were forced to use them to strike ground targets.
In March 2015, another Mi-14 made an emergency landing in the mountains due to a technical problem, while the aircraft overturned. The crew was captured, one of the pilots was later executed.
Helicopters of this type entered service in 1976. They were actively used in the Soviet Navy and in the Navies of the Warsaw Pact countries, as well as in friendly states such as Cuba, Syria, Yemen and Libya.
Alexey Moiseev
