Russian President Vladimir Putin called on aviation industry experts to put the safety of flights and passengers above all else and spoke about his own actions when a bird got into the engine of his plane. On this topic, he spoke on February 9 during the opening ceremony of new civil aviation facilities.
As the president said, during one of his flights, a bird got into the plane’s engine. When the crew of the liner was asked what the pilots would do, the aircraft commander replied that the flight “can be held.”
However, Putin asked to land at an intermediate airport. The head of state did not want incidents to occur.
According to the Russian leader, he also once needed to fly a helicopter in zero visibility. The President offered to seat him, but the commander, despite the position of the passenger, objected.
“I am the commander of the ship, I make the decision,” the pilot said.
As a result, the helicopter was nevertheless deployed and the head of state did not fly to its destination that day. As Putin stressed, these examples show the need to always be guided by security considerations.
Also on Thursday, he called the right decision to leave foreign aircraft in the Russian Federation. Putin pointed to Russia’s desire to pay off foreign aircraft leased from foreign owners.
