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104-10124-10040 JFK Assassination Records Archives 1 (11/1/1958)

handle is hein.jfk/jfkarch39526 and id is 1 raw text is: 104-1012410040
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                                                                    1 November 1958





               SUBJECT: American  C-118 Aircraft Downed in Soviet
                        Azerbaijan  27 June 1958 by Soviet NIG-17's



                   On 27 June 1958, a C!-118 cargo plane, assigned to the U, S. Air
              Force in Wiesbaden, was fired  on and forced down near Gendarkh- _Sov
              Azerbaijan.  The plane was carrying nirle U. S. airmen,/ 1


                                        assigned to Wiesbaden, Germany.  The nine men
              were en route from Wiesbaden to Teheran and Pakistan on a flight carry-
              ing cargo for CIA.                               were planning to get off. 4
              the plane in Teheran had the plane remained on course.

                   The plane, while en route to Teheran from Nicosia and as a result
              of bad weather and navigation error, went off its plotted course and
              crossed into Soviet Armenia.  There it was intercepted and fired on by
              three NIG-17's and caught fire in the left wing.  Five of the crew bailed
              out and the other four rode the aircraft down to a safe landing on a
              small airstrip at Genharkh in Soviet Azerbaijan.  The crew members who
              had remained on the plane to its landing got out safely and the plane
              was burning fiercely when the crew last saw it.  The part of the crew
              that parachuted was surrounded by Soviet peasants, some of whom beat and
              stnck  at the crew members.  One of the men,                          3)
                        was taken by the mob to a telephone pole and narrowly escaped
              hanging  efore being rescued by the Soviet military.

                                 d the remainder of the crew were turned over to the
              Sovie  military, and after an overnight stay in a Soviet military
              garrison near Stepanakert were taken to a city believed to be Yevlakh,
              and then flown to Baku, Russia.  There they underwent interrogation by
              Soviet intelligence officers, at least one of whom had served in the
              United States, as a Soviet Purchasing Comrmission eTployee 1943-45, and
              later in Canada in 1949-55 as First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy,
              This RIS officer, Vladimir Bourdine, later served in 1955 as a personal
              inter-oreter for Khrushchev in p meeting with Prime Minister Nehru of
              Tndia. .Bcurdine interrogated                         t considerable
              lrngth durnn g the period 30 June - 3 July 1958, while the crew was im-
              prismd   in the MvD 6adquarters  building in Baku.  Following their
              _ndivibdal interoati  os,  the crew memhers were required to appear
              separately before a Commission of Soviet officials atthe Baku MVD
              Headquarters who questioned them about the border violation by the
              C-118 ai-rcraft, and recuested them to sign staterments attesting that
              they .ed twn cell-.tre~atedz< a  :::A:ves >ical care by the


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