Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
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Lattakia, SANA – With faith in their planes, leadership, people and with resolute determination, the Syrian Air Force pilots continue to take to the skies to protect Syria and the Syrian people from terrorists and their supporters.
SANA’s correspondent, as part of a joint media delegation, visited a Syrian Air Force base and witnessed firsthand examples of the operations and missions carried out by the pilots and their high readiness.
The correspondent interviewed a number of pilots, one of whom has been in active duty for 27 years and piloting a MiG-21, who said that he carries out between 2 to 4 combat missions against terrorist organizations per day, and asserted that terrorists flee like panicked rats when they hear the roar of the Syrian jet fighters’ engines, and they resort to media misdirection by lying and claiming that airstrikes target non-combative targets.
Another pilot, a brigadier general, said that after the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces entered the battle against terrorism, targets are being picked via a coordination office liaising between the Syrian and Russian air forces, and the targets – which include terrorists’ command centers, combat equipment, military convoy, vehicles, or artillery – are selected with great care and dealt with in a very precise manner.
A third pilot took to the air in his MiG-23 and returned soon after, performing aerial acrobatics and signaled to the journalists from his cockpit, giving them a thumbs up to indicate that his mission was carried out successfully, then signaling “v” for victory. After disembarking from the plane, he informed the correspondent that he targeted and destroyed a command center for terrorists.
The correspondent also met with the technicians and saw a strong sense of team spirit in how they and the pilots interact, and remarked their dedication to maintaining the warplanes in a state of full readiness and get the best performance out of them via regular and constant supervision and inspection.
Hazem Sabbagh
