The pilot had no choice but to parachute out.

Lieutenant General Pham Truong Son commanded the search operation at the scene on the evening of November 6th.

This information was provided by Lieutenant General Pham Truong Son, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army, to the press late on November 6th, after rescue forces completed the rescue of two pilots from the mountainous area of ​​Ham Ho, Tay Phu commune, Tay Son district, more than 10 hours after their Yak-130 crashed during a training flight earlier that day.

Lieutenant General Pham Truong Son, a former fighter pilot and Deputy Commander of the Air Defense and Air Force Command, stated that the accident involving the two pilots of the 940th Air Regiment was an "extremely complex" incident. As they prepared to land, they discovered that the rear right landing gear had failed to deploy, while the front and rear left landing gears were ready for landing. Among the options considered, the pilots even attempted to create a massive overload, "almost collapsing the aircraft," but the landing gear still wouldn't deploy.

"If all the landing gear fails to deploy, the pilot can still land on the belly of the aircraft. However, if one landing gear fails to extend and the others cannot be folded, then parachuting is absolutely necessary," Lieutenant General Pham Truong Son said, adding that after receiving orders from the flight command, the two pilots flew the Yak-130 and parachuted into a mountainous area about 30 km from Phu Cat airport.

Rescue forces found Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Hong Quan (left) at 8:20 PM yesterday, and nearly two hours later discovered the other pilot.

According to the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army, the Yak-130 aircraft is designed for two pilots, one in the front and one in the rear. In an emergency, when deploying parachutes, the pilot in the rear ejects first. The projectile increased the ejection seat's gravitational pull by 20 times, impacting the pilot's health. The two victims, after being rescued from the jungle, were transferred to Military Hospital 17 of the 5th Military Region in Da Nang .

"After completing the rescue operation, we will conduct a preliminary review, then organize a search for the crash site, decode the black box to find the reason why the rear landing gear did not deploy," Lieutenant General Pham Truong Son said.

Yesterday morning, November 6th, Colonel Nguyen Van Son, Regiment Commander, and Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Hong Quan, Head of Flight Operations of the Regiment, were piloting a Yak-130 (serial number 210D) for long-range training in complex weather conditions. At the end of the exercise, around 11 a.m., as they were preparing to land, they discovered the landing gear could not be deployed and requested permission to parachute. The two pilots landed approximately 1 km apart and contacted their unit by phone after several hours of being missing.

The location where the two pilots, Nguyen Hong Quan and Nguyen Van Son, parachuted and were found.

The Ministry of National Defence mobilized numerous units from Military Region 5 to coordinate with local authorities, employing a series of measures such as deploying helicopters, searching for phone signals, and using radar to locate the aircraft and pilots. Lieutenant General Pham Truong Son stated that the units had to calculate minute-by-minute information on navigation maps regarding the aircraft's speed and altitude, parachute deployment design, wind direction, etc., to determine the pilot's descent direction and effectively deploy rescue forces.

"The search took place in challenging weather conditions, with heavy rain, strong winds, and mountainous terrain ranging from 550 to 900 meters high. However, the forces persevered through the difficulties, coordinating precisely to find the two pilots," Mr. Son said.

VN (according to VnExpress)

Source: https://baohaiduong.vn/vu-may-bay-quan-su-roi-o-binh-dinh-phi-cong-chi-con-cach-nhay-du-397430.html