Drunken Crop-Dusters’ Appetites Cited in Crash Deaths

Drunken Soviet crop-dusters, hungry for some shish kebab, illegally took off in a biplane in search of a sheep and crashed, killing six of the seven men aboard, the newspaper Vozdushny Transport reported Saturday.

The article in the newspaper, which specializes in civil aviation news, was clearly linked to the drive launched by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev against alcoholism and lax work discipline.

Vozdushny Transport said pilot Vladimir Lipov, in violation of his rating, had been flying an Antonov-2M biplane during crop dusting work in June, 1985, in the Orenburg region, 650 miles southeast of Moscow.

Lipov reportedly landed at a collective farm, and found crew members, aviation workers and a doctor feasting and drinking liqueurs right on the runway.

‘We Need Some Shish Kebab’

“What kind of appetizers are there?” Lipov asked during the course of the meal. “With these kinds of drinks, we need some shish kebab.”

The men then clambered aboard his plane and took off for a nearby state-owned farm, Vozdushny Transport said. There, they made an illegal deal with a shepherd to buy one of the farm’s sheep and took off again.

“But the drunken Lipov already had a devil-may-care attitude,” the newspaper said, and had forgotten to check how the plane’s weight was distributed.

The plane soared aloft, then crashed to earth, rebounded and struck a hillside and caught fire. Lipov was the only one of seven people aboard to survive.

“When the plane went out of control, I managed to shout to the second pilot, Yevgeny Zhenya, ‘We’re going down,’ ” Lipov was quoted as saying. “He looked at me with wild eyes and said, ‘What have we done?’ ”

Vozdushny Transport said Lipov’s severe injuries in the crash delayed his trial, but that he had been found guilty on unspecified criminal charges and sentenced to 11 years in prison.