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April, 28 2007
00:00
Vladivostok Air staff has been repeatedly awarded government decorations of Russia for gallantry and selflessness demonstrated during emergency operations, for their personal contribution to development and improvement of civil defense operations and excellent professional skills. Their certificates of merit and medals also include three Bravery Medals — these were awarded to helicopter pilots V. S. Kascheyev, A. G. Kalashnikov, and E. F. Yekimtsov for rescue operations during the flood in Lazovsky District.
Yet another well-deserved award — the Russian Emergency Ministry badge "To Participant in Emergency Relief Operation" — was granted to Igor Kolesnikov, the co-pilot of the MI-8 helicopter of Vladivostok Air squadron.
Rescuers are not particularly willing to describe their deeds in a heroic light. And Igor Kolesnikov, too, does not think that he has done something special. Yes, during last summer he and his crew found and took to a safe location a total of 10 people who suffered a disaster — six children who were adrift in a boat for more than 11 hours in the Peter the Great Bay and four adults who were being carried away in a rubber boat by the Amursky Gulf current to the open sea.
Success of a rescue operation depends on professional skills of a number of people, — relates Igor Aleksandrovich, — They include the three-men crew of the helicopter, the parachute-landing group of the Vladivostok Air regional search-and-rescue base and the airline doctor, too. It just so happened that I took part in both rescue operations and as a result I deserved a commendation of that level, the first during my 27 years of service. Still, the most important award to me is an ordinary badge for 3,000 fail-safe flying hours. It is an important figure for a pilot.
Under the agreement concluded with the Russian Emergency Ministry Vladivostok Air helicopter search crew is on duty daily. Their main task is search and rescue of oceangoing vessels and aircrafts in distress as well as emergency-and-rescue operations during various disasters. That duty watch might be the only area of work where the squadron helicopter pilots wish fewer flights for themselves. Nevertheless disasters do strike from time to time, and the helicopter comes to the rescue of crews of sinking ships, flood victims, fishermen carried away on ice floes or in boats, in a word, to the rescue of those who wait for help.
