Oleg Peshkov is a domestic military pilot who died in Syria. He had the qualifications of a sniper, led the flight safety service in Lipetsk. In 2015, he was sent to participate in hostilities in Syria. In November of the same year, the plane he was in was shot down by a Turkish fighter. The incident occurred over the city of Turkmen. Peshkov, together with navigator Murakhtin, managed to eject. But fire was opened on them from the ground. As a result, Peshkov was killed. His colleague managed to escape.
Biography of the pilot
Oleg Peshkov was born in the small village of Kosikha, which is located on the territory of the Altai Territory. He was born in 1970.
Soon his family moved to Ust-Kamenogorsk, where he received a diploma of secondary education in 1985. Two years later he became a graduate of the Suvorov Military School in Sverdlovsk, from where he graduated with a silver medal. The next step was the military aviation school in Kharkov, which he had already graduated with honors.
Service inarmy
Immediately after school, Oleg Peshkov went to serve at an airbase in the Kyrgyz SSR. He flew MiG-21 aircraft as an instructor pilot. In 1992 he was transferred to the Amur region, where he stayed until 1998 in the garrison in the town of Vozzhaevka. There he served in the reconnaissance regiment. Over time, he became a squadron commander in Primorsky Krai.
In the late 2000s, his career took off. Oleg Peshkov became the head of the flight safety service at the state aviation personnel training center, which was directly subordinate to the Ministry of Defense.
The hero of our article received his higher military education at the Air Force Academy, named after the first cosmonaut of the Earth, Yuri Gagarin. For all the time of service he mastered as many as five types of aircraft. Total flew 1750 hours. He had an army specialization as a military sniper pilot.
Trip to Syria
Oleg Anatolyevich Peshkov was sent to serve in Syria in 2015. Its last flight took place on 24 November. He went on a sortie as a crew commander on a front-line bomber. His mission was to bomb.
In the area of the Russian-Syrian border, his Su-24 bomber was shot down by an air-to-air missile. The launch was made by an F-16 fighter belonging to the Turkish Air Force. In this case, the incident occurred on Syrian territory, in the region of the province of Latakia. The crew of the aircraft, consisting of Peshkov and navigator Konstantin Murakhtin, was able toeject.
However, pilot Oleg Peshkov was not destined to land alive on the ground. He was fired upon from the ground by militants. Later, a Turkish far-right organization called the Gray Wolves claimed responsibility for the murder of the Russian military. This was officially announced by its leader Alpaslan Celik.
Almost immediately after the murder of Oleg Peshkov, photos and videos with his body were posted on the Internet. Radical militants were on them next to the pilot.
Only in March 2016, the militant who committed the murder, along with 14 accomplices, was detained in the Turkish city of Izmir by local police.
The greatest indignation of the military and civilians was caused by the fact that opening fire on pilots landing on parachutes was a clear and open violation of one of the fundamental clauses of the Geneva Convention, which was adopted in 1949. It expressly states that no person leaving an aircraft by parachute shall be attacked during their entire descent to the ground.
5 days after his death, Peshkov's body was taken to the morgue in the Turkish province of Hatay. From there it was already sent to Ankara. The autopsy was performed by Russian forensic experts, who found that the death of the pilot Oleg Peshkov, whose biography is given in this article, resulted from 8 bullet wounds and multiple bruises throughout the body.
The fate of the navigator
By a lucky chance, navigator Murakhtin, who was flying with Peshkov, was out of the zone of active shelling of militants. Initially, there were reports in the media that he was in captivity. It was later announced that Murakhtin also died in the air. But in reality he was alive.
Russian services launched a special operation together with Syrian units to rescue Murakhtin. It was implemented on the night of November 24-25. In total, the operation lasted about 12 hours.
It all started with the fact that on the evening of November 24 it became reliably known that Murakhtin was alive. Then two Mi-8 helicopters departed from the airbase located in Khmeimim. Soon one of the helicopters was hit by ground fire. Marine Alexander Pozynich, who took part in this operation, died.
At this time, Murakhtin, who landed safely on the ground in the territory controlled by the militants, was hiding from opponents in the forest for almost a day. The soldiers of the Syrian army managed to find him by the beacon, which the navigator had with him. The Syrians transported Murakhtin to the Khmeimim air base from the territory controlled by the terrorists.
Peshkov's funeral
The coffin with the body of Lieutenant Colonel Peshkov was received by domestic diplomats and representatives of the Ministry of Defense on November 30. He was first taken to a military hospital in Ankara and then transferred to Russia.
The special flight with the body landed at the Chkalovsky military airfield. Throughout the flight over Russia, he was accompanied by an escort of fighters.
December 2, 2015 Peshkov was buried withwith all military honors in Lipetsk, at the city cemetery.
Private life
Peshkov is survived by his wife Helena Yurievna, as well as two children, an 18-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son.
His younger brother is also serving. He is a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard. In memory of the deceased Russian pilot, a memorial plate was erected in his native village of Kosikha in the Altai Territory. The same plates appeared in Vozzhaevka, where he served, as well as on the building of the Barnaul Museum of Local Lore.
In addition, a monument was erected in Vozzhaevka, which was made at the expense of local residents and military personnel.
The original honored his memory in Serbia. There, on one of the houses in the city of Novi Sad, a graffiti with a portrait of a pilot appeared.
