- Timur Apakidze
Timur Avtandilovich Apakidze ( _ru. Апакидзе Тимур Автандилович) (
March 4 ,1954 -July 17 ,2001 ), Russianmajor general , deputy commander of naval aviation andHero of the Russian Federation .Biography
Apakidze was born in
Tbilisi ,Georgian SSR into an ethnically Georgian family, but at a very young age moved to Leningrad (Saint Petersburg ) with his family. In 1971 he finished at Leningrad's Nakhimov Naval Academy before finishing flight training in 1975 at Yeyskoye Military Flight Academy [http://evvaul.com/] Between 1975 and 1983 Apakidze served in theSoviet Naval Aviation element of the SovietBaltic Fleet gaining reputation as one of its besttest pilot s. After 1983 Apakidze headed a battle group centred around theaircraft carrier "Admiral Kuznetsov" and flewSukhoi Su-33 aircraft on numerous missions with theBlack Sea Fleet .After the dissolution of the Soviet Union his naval aviation unit based in
Crimea refused to join the newly createdUkrainian Air Force and in addition Apekidze also refused an offer to head theAir force of his native Georgia. Instead he and his men remained loyal to Russia and were re-deployed toSeveromorsk together with the aircraft carrier Kuznetsov.Serving with Northern Fleet Apakidze was in charge ofRussian Naval Aviation 's only Fleet Defense Interceptorsquadron in the 1990s.On
August 17 ,1995 for his outstanding contributions to the Russian naval aviation, and for courage and heroism in the testing and mastery of new technology Timur Apakidze was awarded the titleHero of the Russian Federation .In 2000, after study at the General Staff Academy, Apakidze was appointed deputy commander of naval aviation and promoted to the rank of major general.OnJuly 17 ,2001 , Apakidze died near the town ofOstrov , Pskov region when his Su-33 Flanker fighter jet crashed during an air show. In the last moments of his life he managed to steer his aircraft away from a populated area.References
* [http://warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?hero_id=1021 Biography of Timur Apakidze in Russian]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.