Russian version of helicopter mission

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33521, 30 April 1974, Page 13

Russian version of helicopter mission

6V.Z. Press Association—Copyright) MOSCOW, April 29. The Soviet Union helicopter and crew captured by the Chinese more than a month ago was on a mercy mission, and carried no intelligence equipment when it crossed the i frontier in error, avoiding to a detailed report ) in the Communist Party organ, “Pravda."

! The report appears to conifirm that the Russians have' 'been unsuccessful in their attempts to have the craft and its drew of three ■ ■ returned, though there is no reference to their detention ! in the article I The Chinese version of the 'incident is that the helicopter was on a spy mission, !and had made several landings on Chinese territory before the crew were apprehended in the northernmost I part of the province of Sin'kiang on March 14. “Pravda” provides details intended to support the earlier Russian claim that the helicopter became lost in! dense mountain fog, and strayed across the frontier, las it attempted to reach a military outpost where a i Russian soldier was near to death. .) The soldier is said to have! been bleeding, and in need J of surgery’. '! The crew members are

listed as the pilot, Captain: Alexander Kurbatov, and, Lieutenants Alexander 'Uskov and Vladimir Buchenkov. “Pravda” says that! Captain Kurbatov is a career) .officer, and that the other: two had been pilots in civilian life. The MT4 helicopter normally carries a crew of two on the flight-deck, and an observer. There is room for 14 other people but apparently no doctor was aboard. The “Pravda” story, while emphasising the urgency of the rescue mission, gives no hint of the sick soldier’s fate when the helicopter failed to reach him. “Pravda” says that a military aircraft was used for ■the mission because a civilian helicopter could not have reached the patient in bad weather. In any case, it lis unlikely that anything but a military craft would have been used to pick .up a soldier from the super-sensitive border area with China.