67-18112 was a RU-21A CEFERIM LEADER aircraft and I’ve sent an email to someone who served with the unit that operated it to try and find out more information, particularly on the colour scheme it carried and the details of its demise. I’m not that hopeful of a response in all honesty.

I’ve seen pictures of RU-21s still carrying the brown/white colours when they were eventually disposed off to K&K Aircraft when the mass cull took place but I’ve also (now) seen pictures of RU-21s carrying the overall grey colour scheme as early as 1985.

I asked on another forum for more details of 18112 but what I have posted earlier is all that came back.

One suggestion is that the entry in the ASN database is deliberately wrong to disguise its location given the sensitive nature of its duties at the time.

As I suggested earlier, the crucial markinsg to look out for is the aircraft technical data block. This is what Joe Baugher has to say about it

The three-line fuselage data block was reduced in size to one-inch characters in 1932 and placed on the left hand side of the fuselage near the cockpit. This is known as the Technical Data Block (TDB). The data block not only displayed the full serial number, but also the exact model type and sometimes the aircraft’s home base or the branch of the military with which it served. The TDB eventually became the only place on the aircraft where the serial number was actually displayed. It was often true that the only other sort of identification shown was a unit and base identification code displayed on both sides of the fuselage or on the fin. This made it difficult to identify the actual serial number of the aircraft, leading to a lot of confusion.

The Technical Data Block is still in used today, although it is now called the Aircraft Data Legend, and by the early 1990s it was reduced in size to letters only 1/2 inch high and moved to a new position hear the ground refuelling receptacle.

Here is a picture on the Old Wings website showing the TDB on an old aircraft to give you an idea of what you are looking for

If this is 18112 it should carry the block under the cockpit on the port side (but remember the wreck is upside down on the sea bed)

IIRC, there was some talk of the Russians offering the use of their MiG-25U ejection seat testbed for supersonic ejections.

The aircraft was (is?) operated by LII – the Gromov Flight Research Institute at Zhukovsky……..

Aboard the MiG-25U flying lab, research and tests of dynamics and high-altitude stabilization of the K-36 ejection seat family are carried out

The LII MiG-25U used to open the bi-annual MAKS airshow – but I haven’t seen it for a number of years now – so it is presumably no longer airworthy…. 🙁

Ken

Wasn’t the 1992 (pre-MAKS proper) show opened by a SU-7 used for ejection trials which having carried out a live ejection firing in front of the crowd then went onto crash a few miles on ?

I’ve asked on the NAMAR forum about this and have turned up a picture of 67-18112 taken in Orlando in 1979 which makes me now think that this is possibly not the wreck in the pictures.

67-18112 was a RU-21A and as such (most likely) carried radar/electronic pods which look like “tip tanks” . I don’t see these on the wings but perhaps you could check the nearby wreckage in case they were knocked off.

Additionally, the picture I have shows that it carried the brown/white paint scheme with the engine covers in particular being in all over brown.

Old copies of BAR don’t give any additional information, and has been pointed out to me, the ASN database is not perfect.

I totally agree with TEEJ’s interpretation that what you think is the cockpit windows are the nose luggage lockers.

What we really need to see is the underside of what is lying there (which is why I made the comment about it being buried in silt). The tail section would be nice to see as well as that is where the makers plate is carried.

I think it is a King Air from the wing shape and the turbine engine in the photograph. Sadly, that might be as close as we get.

me neither.

I wonder what Seawreck has seen to make him identify a tandem seating layout.

Especially given that the wreck is upside and apparently buried in silt

Do you know any turbo prop twins with tandem cockpit seating? I can’t think of any. Single engined turbo or jet, yes. Twin’s props, no.

For the record….I just acquired some information…..which needs cross checking….

Its a Beechcraft King Air C90 (or a T-44) of the US Navy or Airforce which crashed at that site early 70s. The aircraft was based at the former military base of USAF at Hellikon which eventually closed late 80s.

As you all know Hellinikon was the international airport of Greece until 2002.

This accident is not recorded by the Greek authorities. This information is from an aviation mechanic of former Olympic Airways (flag carrier of Greece)

If it crashed in the early 70s then it is not a T-44 or C90 variant of the King Air, it is much more likely to be a Beech U-21 Ute (C90s didn’t come of the production line until later).

I’m looking through Joe Baugher’s pages to see if it is listed. I have looked through the U-21 serial listing and there are a number of U-21 crashes in the 1970s but without locations. I’ll ask elsewhere.

Oh yes, if it is a U-21 then then it is an A90 King Air for the purists and pedants amongst us.

🙂

http://www.baaa-acro.com/Pays/G/Grece.htm

doesn’t show up any specific references to King Airs but there is a military accident on 25 August 2003 where the type is not specified. However, I have to say that if was a military airframe I would have expected them to have removed the airframe for investigation.

Now, a civil airframe perhaps on some kind of nefarious activity might just be allowed to lie where it went down.