Air Force
Because of the civil war, air force development was slow. The first equipment to arrive was 10 MI-8MTBs and 5 MI-24 in 1993 based at Dushanbe. The first transport aircraft were AN-24s(?) and AN-26s(?) were supplied in 1996. A plan from the 1990s to acquire SU-25s from Belarus to form an attack squadron did not occur. The Tajik Air Force remains small as Dushanbe doesn't expect an attack on the nation from the air and that Russian Air Force units at Gissar in Tajikistan and other such Russian contingents in Kazakhstan would deter any such assault. The country is also patrolled by Russian aircraft as part of the Joint CIS Air Defense System. However, Moscow did help bolster the Tajik's helicopter contingents in 2006-07 by giving them six Mil Mi-8 and Mil Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters. It also provided four L-39 Albatros.
An accident occurred on 6 October 2010 when a Mi-8, military helicopter from the Tajik National Guard crashed in the Rasht Valley close to Ezgand and Tavildara. The helicopter got caught in some power lines and crashed without survivors while attempting to land. The helicopter caught fire and crashed without survivors. This is the deadliest accident in Tajik aviation since 1997.
Read more about this topic: Military Of Tajikistan
Famous quotes containing the words air and/or force:
“This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beautythis city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism.”
—Thomas Mann (18751955)
“Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.”
—Simone Weil (19091943)