Pilot of Russian SU-27 Major Troyanov comes back from Lithuania

Russian Air Force Major Vladimir Troyanov, who catapulted on Lithuanian territory September 15 from a stranded Su-27 fighter jet, has returned to the city of Kaliningrad, the administrative center of Russia’s Baltic enclave of the same name.

Major Troyanov and his wife Olga left Vilnius on two separate cars earlier in day and crossed the Lithuanian-Russian state border at the Kibartaj-Chernyshevskoye crossing point, where officials issued all the necessary documents to them, the Itar-Tass reports.

The Troyanov spouses were then taken to Kaliningrad by car. Major Troyanov told reporters in a brief interview he was thankful to all the people who had taken part in his return from Lithuania.

When a reporter asked him if he planned continuing service in the Air Force, he said it would depend on the conclusions of military medics. He also said he had rejected a medical examination offered by the Lithuanians as there were no Russian doctors on the commission.

The Su-27 fighter jet Major Troyanov was piloting developed a navigation system failure during a flight from the Leningrad region to Kaliningrad September 15.

After the stranded machine had worked out the resource of fuel and the pilot had gotten confidence there were no towns or villages on the land area below, he catapulted and the jet crashed.

The incident occurred 50 kilometers west off Lithuania’s second largest city, Kaunas. No one on the ground was affected. Lithuanian authorities detained Major Troyanov on the suspicion that he had violated flight regulations purposefully.

An investigation spanning more than 20 days followed, but the Lithuanian Prosecutor General’s Office established that the incident had resulted from a chain of technological and human factors and could not be regarded as a provocation on the part of Russia.