SERBIAN TEST-PILOT KILLED IN CRASH OF G-4 JET TRAINER
A Serbian Armed Forces (Vojska Srbije, VS) test-pilot was killed and another injured on 11 April after they ejected from SOKO G-4 Super Galeb (Serbian military designation N-62) single-engine advance training and light attack jet aircraft that crashed at 09.30 hours near the village of Kovacica, some 40 km north-east of Belgrade.
Killed in this accident was Maj. Robert Kaloci (49) while non-life-threatening injuries were sustained by Maj. Aleksandar Matic, both serving with the Batajnica-based Flight Test Center (Centar za Letna Ispitivanja), part of VS's Technical Test Center (Tehnicki Opitni Centar, TOC).
The aircraft that crashed was wearing identification number 23742 that indentifies it as a 1990-produced airframe that passed last general overhaul in 2012 at Moma Stanojlovic military aeronautical plant located at Batajnica air base from where the ill-fated aircraft took off for the last time on a routine training flight.
This is the third crash of Serbian G-4 since 2008, the previous two also been fatal - the aircraft 23736 crashed on 24 September 2008 at Batajnica air base killing Lt.Col. Istvan Kanas followed by last year, 7 April crash of 23625 that happened 60km south-west of Belgrade claiming lives of Lt.Col Nenad Culibrk (49) and Cap. Dejan Pandurovic (39).
The Roll-Royce Viper Mk 632-46 powered G-4 was designed in former Yugoslavia and produced in 91 units (85 for Yugoslavia and 6 for Myanmar) in the period 1978-1991.
The last Serbian G-4 crash declined nation's Super Galeb inventory to 20 aircraft out of which no more than eight are operational at any given moment. The sole other remaining operator of G-4 today is Myanmar that still flies four out of six aircraft procured from the former Yugoslavia.
Two other former G-4 operators are still home to five non-operational Super Galeb jets: 23725 is grounded at Mahovljani air base, near Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina while 23647, 23690, 23692 and 23729 remains grounded at Golubovci air base, near Podgorica in Montenegro.
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