On April 11, 1992, President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin, by decree No. 384, posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia to the head of the Lipetsk Center for Combat Training and Retraining of Flight Personnel, Major General Aviation Sulambek Oskanov.

“For courage and heroism shown in the performance of military duty, to award the title of Hero of the Russian Federation to Major General of Aviation Oskanov Sulambek Susarkulovich (posthumously),” the text of the document says.

The deceased native of Ingushetia became the first Hero of the Russian Federation.

The highest rank and state award of the Russian Federation were established on March 20, 1992.

The former combat pilot Alexander Rutskoi, who at that time held the position of Vice President of the Russian Federation, then applied for the award of the title of Hero of Russia to Oskanov.

“The feat has no nationality, he is a real Hero of Russia!

I was preparing a draft decree on awarding Sulambek Oskanov the title of Hero of Russia, and Boris Yeltsin signed it without any hesitation,” Rutskoi said in 2012 during a commemorative rally in the settlement of Plievo, where Oskanov was born and buried.

The major general performed his sacrificial feat on February 7, 1992.

On this day, he performed a training night flight on a MiG-29 fighter over the Lipetsk region.

When approaching a training air target on the plane, the control system failed, which led to the sliding of the fighter and its subsequent rotation.

It is also known that the artificial horizon stopped working on Oskanov's car - the device responsible for determining the angles of inclination of the aircraft.

As noted in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the actions of the major general to prevent a disaster were hampered by difficult flight conditions and significant lateral overload.

The pilot lost his spatial orientation, but still managed to take the fighter away from residential buildings - at the last moment, Oskanov turned the falling car 90 degrees.

  • Monument to Sulambek Oskanov in Magas

  • globallookpress.com

  • © UAC_Russia_eng/Twitter.com

“The plane came out of the clouds above the Khvorostyanka station at an altitude of 400 m. In the last moments, Oskanov managed to take it away from the settlement.

3 km from the station, near the village of Kozelki, the plane crashed into the ground, ”the materials of the military department say.

In addition, with his feat, Oskanov prevented the death of other MiG-29 pilots - after the tragedy, Russian designers revealed a defect in one of the nodes of the control system of this fighter.

The identified defect was successfully eliminated, and such accidents in domestic aviation were no longer repeated.

Modest and

purposeful

Sulambek Oskanov was born on January 8, 1943 in a large Ingush family.

After graduating from high school, he worked as a fitter.

Since 1962, he served in the Soviet army.

In 1966, the future Hero of Russia graduated from the Kachinsk Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots, eight years later - from the Military-Political Academy.

IN AND.

Lenin (1974).

Shortly before his death, in 1991, Oskanov completed the courses of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces.

During his service, Oskanov mastered ten types of combat vehicles and received the title of Master of Sports of the USSR in aerobatics on jet aircraft.

His total flight time exceeded 3 thousand hours.

In 1987, Oskanov began his service at the Lipetsk Aviation Center, and a year later he headed it.

During his professional career, the pilot was awarded the Order of the Red Star and "For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" III degree. 

In memory of Oskanov's feat, memorials were opened at the crash site of his plane near the village of Kozelki, in Lipetsk and in Magas.

The name of the brave pilot is given to a school in Pliev, an airport in the capital of Ingushetia, as well as streets in this North Caucasian republic.

In 2012, one of the MiG-29s of the Lipetsk Aviation Center was named after Sulambek Oskanov.

This machine, number 29, performed demonstration flights as part of the Falcons of Russia aerobatic team.

After a major overhaul, the fighter entered the fleet of the Russian air base Erebuni in Armenia.

In 2018, one of the UTair aircraft was named after the first Hero of Russia.

People who knew Oskanov, and the inhabitants of Ingushetia, call the pilot "the knight of heaven."

The life and professional path of the first Hero of Russia is dedicated to the book of his friend, Candidate of Historical Sciences Visan-Girey Tankiev "The moment of General Oskanov".

  • Postage stamp in honor of Sulambek Oskanov

  • © Wikimedia Commons

Tankiev characterizes the deceased comrade as a modest, purposeful, charming and generous person.

Speaking to people, the pilot tried to be concise, clearly and intelligibly expounded his thoughts.

Oskanov was also remembered for his active civic position.

The officer personally met with Dzhokhar Dudayev and was very wary of his separatist aspirations, which turned into two bloody armed conflicts for Chechnya and the rest of Russia.

Oskanov was also anxious about the unrest in the territory of his small homeland: after the collapse of the USSR, protest rallies swept Ingushetia, new people appeared who tried to establish power in the republic.

Shortly before his death, Oskanov, together with Tankiev, held several meetings with residents and members of the public of Nazran, the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya and other settlements of Ingushetia.

The major general urged people to leave political strife and not get involved in any provocative movements.

Tankiev recalls an episode when, at a meeting in Ordzhonikidzevskaya, one of the women accused him and Oskanov of allegedly trying to take advantage of the tense situation in Ingushetia and take high-ranking positions.

According to the memoirs of the historian, the pilot was very hurt by these words.

“We do not need any chairs and positions!

We are quite satisfied with our position and the work we do.

As for our arrival, we, like all true patriots of our people, sincerely want to help them in these difficult days,” said Oskanov, blushing with resentment.

After a trip to Ingushetia, the major general returned to serve in Lipetsk.

Arguing about why the pilot did not eject on February 7, 1992, Tankiev came to the conclusion that his comrade was trying to save the lives of civilians.

"Fulfilled my duty"

Even from the Kachinsky School, Sulambek Susarkulovich was called "Sergei Sergeyich".

  • The MiG-29 aircraft of the operational-tactical aviation of Russia, named after Sulambek Oskanov (Erebuni air base, Armenia)

  • © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

“Not a single person believed that he was an Ingush.

They all considered him Russian... He spoke Ingush purely, but he didn’t have any accent in Russian,” Salman Oskanov, brother of the Hero of Russia, told Rossiya 1 TV channel journalists earlier.

The pilots who knew Oskanov recall his decency, indefatigable inner energy and loyalty to the profession: the head of the Lipetsk Aviation Center voluntarily continued to rise into the sky, being the owner of the general's shoulder straps.

According to the Honored Military Pilot of the Russian Federation, Candidate of Technical Sciences, Major General Vladimir Popov, the future Hero of the Russian Federation was a famous person in the ranks of the Air Force and on February 7, 1992, he showed his best qualities in the sky over the Lipetsk Region.

“It takes a lot of courage to keep your composure in a difficult emergency.

To make such a difficult decision (not to eject immediately) is a courageous act inherent in a real hero.

I think that he acted consciously, fought fearlessly until the last moment, ”Popov said in an interview with RT.

Oskanov's first priority was to save the lives of civilians, Popov added.

Also, as the pilot believes, the major general hoped to reach the airfield, but the technical problems turned out to be too serious.

“Our pilots are so educated that they always try to save people and land the car.

These principles are learned from the first years of school.

However, even an experienced pilot is not able to foresee all the nuances and have time to eject when the car is doomed.

An airplane is a complex system, and the time to make a decision is sometimes seconds.

Oskanov fulfilled his duty, accomplished a feat worthy of the high title of Hero of Russia,” Popov is sure.

In a RT commentary, aviation expert, columnist for Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine Dmitry Drozdenko said that Oskanov's name is part of the Russian pantheon, consisting of the names of such pilots as Nikolai Gastello, Viktor Talalikhin, Boris Safonov, Boris Kapustin, Yuri Yanov, and other Air Force officers who sacrificed themselves to save others.

“The courage of our pilots is our national treasure.

The peculiarity of the national flight school is that it instills in Air Force officers a sense of special responsibility, high willed and moral qualities.

Our pilots prefer to fight to the end.

So, I think, Sulambek Oskanov acted,” Drozdenko emphasized.