The Last Flight of L-39C Albatros 0440
L-39C coded 0440 (Serial Number 395306) during service st Náměšt nad Oslavou. [Photo: Milan Simr]
Text: David Sochacký
(Photo: unless specified otherwise, the Author’s and Tomas Dedera Archives)
I am writing this summary on the request of a friend, mechanic and modeller. With respect to the fact that it pertains to our own activities, I will refrain from naming names, since I am not sure that my former colleagues would be agreeable with their printing. Furthermore, I must admit that I am describing an event that took place some fourteen years ago, and I cannot locate my copy of the investigation report conclusions, resulting in my going strictly by memory. I have recounted this story so many times to so many people, that I suspect that some deviation from the actual reality of it is unavoidable. So, please forgive me if the following recount is less than perfect.
It was Monday, July 12, 2010 and a hot summer day was expected, and the Flight Training Center (CLV) in Pardubice had scheduled a standard flight regime for this day. At that time, the rule was followed that if the air temperature rises above 33°C, flying was postponed. The temperature was rising quickly, so we held off on flights for a bit.
By this time I was in my second year of training at the CLV and our average logged flight time in the L-39C was about 300 hours per pilot. It was generally expected that we would be posted to our parent unit at the end of the year and our training would slowly transition to a maintenance phase. This required a lot of repetitive tasks. On that given day, we were to perform some air combat with planned maneuvers, with me acting as the target and my colleague and friend in the role of intercepting fighter. According to the applicable CLV rules, an instructor pilot had to be on board the ‘target’ aircraft at all times. The three of us held off with our flight until the mercury began to drop again. Around three o'clock in the afternoon, the air temperature reached its maximum and began to gradually decrease, so we began to prepare for the flight.
‘Forty’ in its final form in front of the hangar of the Aviation Training Center in Pardubice. This photo was taken about a month before the crash.
The pair took off at 1600h local time, and ‘Forty’ (as we affectionately called the airplane coded 0440) was one of the so-called ‘lazier’ machines, so it flew as the target and at the same time led the pair to the training zone. Our training area was known as ‘Oscar’ and ‘Mike’ within the Pardubice TMA (Eastern) jurisdiction. Immediately after arriving in the zone, we took up our positions and the simulated combat began. The task of the target in this type of exercise is to perform prearranged escape maneuvers, while the fighter, on the other hand, had the task of maintaining his advantageous position in the rear hemisphere of the target and continuously creating necessary conditions for a cannon engagement. Essentially, it’s a sort of a dual higher level aerobatics.
The weather was almost perfect and after a while I realized that I had an instructor pilot behind me who would definitely like to ‘fight’ too, so I asked him if he wanted to fly around a bit. It was clear to me that he would not refuse the offer, because sitting in the back is sometimes boring. I handed over control of the aircraft and, for a change, I was enjoying myself and all I had to do was watch the time and fuel. Everything went according to plan, my colleague in the fighter role fought like a lion and even did not allow such an experienced pilot as my instructor to get the better of him. I watched the fuel dwindle and we agreed to do one more maneuver before we headed for home. A couple of vertical climbs followed to stay out of the sights of the guy behind with a transition to scissors (alternating horizontal turns at relatively low speeds), and my mood was approaching a very relaxed state. Out of nowhere, there were two loud metallic bangs coming from the engine bay.
L-39C coded 0440 in 2003, during service with the 222nd Training Squadron at Base 22 of the Czech Air Force at Náměšt nad Oslavou. [Photo: Milan Simr]
I shifted my view to the instrument panel to see what was going on. My instructor, who was famously calm, said nonchalantly into the intercom: ‘probably the engine’. At the same moment when the red lights on the panel began to light up, the radio from the plane behind us said in an excited voice: ‘You're on fire, your engine is on fire!’. White smoke and a column of sparks flowed from the engine's exhaust nozzle. Although I was not in control at the moment, I reached for the engine control lever, slid it to the STOP position, immediately shut off the fuel supply and pressed the fire extinguisher button, exactly as we had learned from emergency procedure drills. It did not help. ‘You're on fire, you're still on fire,’ number two radioed. Just to be sure, I pressed the fire extinguishing button a few more times, even though I knew that the extinguishing system could only be activated once. That was the moment I was really scared like never before and if it wasn't for the instructor in the back seat, I probably wouldn't have dealt with anything more and would have punched out regardless of everything else.
L-39 0440 in the care of ground personnel of the CLV at Pardubice.
Fortunately, the situation calmed down and the engine finally stopped burning. We were at 7000 ft, everything on board was working except the engine, but our landing strip was 30 km away. ‘I won't make it to the field’, said the instructor, who was still flying the plane, over the intercom, as if apologizing to me for the situation in which we found ourselves. ‘Prepare for ejection’ was his next order. I tightened all the straps that bound me to the seat and, by extension, to the parachute. This was followed by a roughly two-minute phase of relatively calm gliding, during which we reported an emergency on the correct frequency, the second aircraft was behind us the whole time communicating with the tower. The direction of our flight was a wooded area northwest of the village of Borohrádek designated for such situations, however, it soon became apparent that we would not be able to make it that far either. ‘So get ready...NOW, get out of here’. I straightened up in the seat, put my head in the headrest, squeezed the catapult handles with both hands, clenched all my muscles and pulled on the handles…
It took about a second to be out of the airplane. I remember how the canopy blew away and the rush of warm air when the seat started to move. Everything worked correctly and I was parachuting somewhere between a field and a meadow. Meanwhile, my instructor remained in the cockpit, having to rebalance the aircraft as a relatively large amount of mass disappeared from the front after my ejection. My exit from the plane took place at a height of approximately 1000 meters above the ground, while the instructor pilot ejected at approximately 300 meters, only after he made sure that the impact of the plane on the ground would be in an uninhabited area. We both escaped relatively unscathed. The pilot of the second plane also enjoyed a great workload, not only shadowing us the whole time and communicating with the tower, but after the plane hit the ground, he recorded its position for the benefit of the subsequent rescue operation. At the same time, he had to fight not only with obvious stress, but also with a lack of fuel. Fortunately, after circling the crash site a few times to make sure we were alive, he returned to base and landed safely.
The last photograph of Albatros 0440, taken from the gun camera of the ‘attacking’ aircraft during simulated combat on July 12, 2010.
My decent with the parachute was definitely not a textbook event, and while trying to control the parachute, I began to bounce around like crazy and I hit the ground like a sack of rice. Immediately after landing, I turned on my phone and called my wife and the base that I was okay. I spread the orange canopy of the parachute over the ground so that it was clearly visible from the air. It didn't take long for a pair of JAS-39 Gripen aircraft from the NATINAMDS standby system to fly over the crash site. A few minutes later I saw first the yellow air ambulance helicopter and then the blue police helicopter. They landed at the crash site, which was about two kilometers away from me, and then headed in my direction. They landed in a meadow a hundred meters from my position. In addition to the rescuers, my instructor also welcomed me into the helicopter. He was in a good mood as always. We shook hands with obvious relief and it dawned on me that despite all the bad luck, it actually turned out really well.
The bottom line of the accident was one destroyed aircraft and minor material damage to the forest cover, but no one was injured, which is probably why I can remember this event with a smile on my face. After all, it was an important experience and it did not affect my love for flying in a negative way.
A view of the crash site near Holice in Eastern Bohemia, taken from the rescue helicopter.
Putting out the fire after the crash. (Photo: iDnes)