40 Azerbaijani helicopters were involved in recent clashes: Karabakh

PanARMENIAN.Net - On April 2, 2016, Nagorno Karabakh Defense Army downed an Azerbaijani Air Force Mi-24G attack helicopter, which was carrying out a combat flight during Baku's military aggression against Karabakh.

Military equipment has been collected from the crash site of the downed helicopter, including flight maps, pilot tablets, user manual for night vision equipment, personal notebook of one of the pilots, VHF ACR500-A 30-420 MHz radio, ARK-U2 automatic radio compass, SARPP-12 flight data recorder with a cassette, part of the helmet-mounted night vision device, 10 links with eight 20 mm cannon shells, optoelectronic module with a gyro-stabilized platform.

The analysis of data from the seized property (flight documentation) revealed that:

- between 31 March and 1 April 2016, the downed Mi-24G, as part of a squadron, flew from Baku's Kala air base to Zhdanovsk with a stopover at Kyurdamir air base;

- the route and the specified targets on the flight map indicate that the crew was tasked to attack targets in the territory of Karabakh, at a depth of three to ten kilometers from the line of contact;

- according to the flight map, an advanced landing ground had been prepared to reduce the time for aircrafts to go into combat;

- in the area of mount Lyalya Ilyagi, a grid was applied with the possible directions of aviation spotters’ work with a group of army aviation helicopters;

- the total duration of flight of the downed helicopter is about three hours;

- objective control data contain records of three separate flights, including the last one.

The Karabakh Defense Ministry earlier provided this information to colleagues in Armenia to introduce it to military attaches of foreign countries accredited in Yerevan.

According to radar reconnaissance of Karabakh air defense forces, during the 4-day aggression up to 60 sorties by the Azerbaijani armed forces were registered, of which 40 with the use of various types of weapons on Karabakh positions.

This is confirmed by the analysis of the armaments, technical equipment, flight maps, pilot's notebook, as well as the transcript of the SARPP-12 data, found at the crash site of the Mi-24G. In the first 12 hours of military actions by the Azerbaijani armed forces, 40 army aviation helicopters were involved.

The actions of the Azerbaijani armed forces, as well as the documents seized from the downed Mi-24G show that the 4-day clashes were planned in advance by the Azerbaijani leadership, Karabakh Defense Ministry said in a statement.