EURASIA INSIGHT
David Trilling
9/29/09
Flying in the former Soviet Union often induces fatalistic feelings and a hefty dose of fear. These sensations are perhaps reasonable when boarding an elderly Soviet prop plane. They are exponentially compounded when flying the only route for which Moscow once dished out danger pay to pilots.
Yet, sometimes there’s just no other feasible transport option than flying. I neither wanted to take the 14- to 24-hour bone-bruising drive on semi-paved roads from Dushanbe to Khorog, nor miss what I heard was the most dramatic and frightening 45 minutes in the world.
Even with the best resolve -- or Valium -- one can never be confident the Tajik Air Antonov-28 will fly. Because it flies between, rather than over the mountains, it is cancelled merely at the hint of a cloud in one of the remote Tajik and Afghan valleys en route. Tickets must be purchased the day of the flight and, with so many passengers backed up from the routine cancellations, seats go to those with the fattest wallets and best connections.
We were a mixed group -- 34 adult knees politely trying to share the diminutive collapsible seats - of aid workers, locals and adventure tourists. A compassionate father comforted his toddler throughout the flight, her ears sensitive to the unpressurized cabin. A Canadian woman in yoga spandex contrasted sharply with the frail grey-stubbled gentleman returning home after his wife’s funeral.
Rumors have it that the flight was shot down during a war -- either Afghan or Tajik -- in the 1990s, but it really only crashed once, on departure from Khorog when 81 passengers were packed onto a 28-seat Yak-40 jet in 1993. Four survived. That no accidents can be blamed on the cantankerous weather speaks to the prowess of Tajik meteorologists.
The twin prop cannot get over the 20,000-foot peaks, so must go between, passing just over 14,000-foot passes, seemingly scraping cliffs on both sides, and chasing ancient trade routes along the lonely rivers that mark the border with Afghanistan.
In the United States, regulations mandate that any aircraft must maintain 500 feet from an obstruction such as the side of a mountain and 2,000 feet above.
Captain Ibragim Kayumov told me that the plane squeezes through the canyons with only 50 meters (164 feet) on each side. One passenger said it felt more like 50 centimeters. Though the captain swears he’s never had any problems, asked if passengers ever get scared, he grins and suggests I ask them.
I didn’t see any air sickness bags within reach.
Heightening the sense of danger, mountain thermals can take control of the aircraft in these high-altitude valleys. In such thin air, with so little space, there is little room to maneuver to compensate for a sudden downdraft.
The scenery helped me easily forget the hazards. In every direction, the endless peaks of the Pamirs and Hindu Kush are topped with glaciers. On one side of the Pyanzh River, a donkey trail connects Afghan villages days from the nearest road. On the other side, trucks from China make slow progress on a road toward markets in Central Asia. From the air, the two sides appear a mere inch apart, but it might be fairer to measure the distance in years of communist rule.
Captain Kayumov, who has been flying this route for 30 years, confirmed another alarming detail. When the route was part of the Soviet Aeroflot system, "We’d get 700 rubles on this flight and other pilots would get 500. This is the only route in the network where pilots would get danger pay," he beamed.
Editor's Note: David Trilling is EurasiaNet’s Central Asia news editor.
