Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2025 All Rights Reserved

Flight hours of Bulgarian military pilots are way below NATO’s standards

Photo: BGNES

The flight hours of the Bulgarian military pilots are way below NATO’s minimum standards, the Commander of the Bulgarian Air Forces Major General Tsanko Stoykov said at Krumovo Air Base. The Bulgarian pilots should fly ten times more to cover the NATO standards, General Stoykov went on to say. On Monday evening a military helicopter MI-17 crashed at this air base. Two pilots died in the accident. The pilots who lost their lives during the accident had 17 and respectively 18 flight hours since the beginning of 2018. According to the NATO standards, each military pilot has to fly 180 hours a year, of which 40 hours may be spent in a flight simulator. The Bulgarian military pilots cannot cover these standards due to the lack of enough resourcing, Major General Stoykov pointed out.




Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Bulgaria honors the memory of national hero Vasil Levski

With various events throughout the country Bulgarians are marking 152 years after the death of the Apostle of Bulgarian Freedom Vasil Levski. Today, at 6:00 p.m. a memorial ceremony in front of the monument to the Apostle of Freedom in Sofia takes..

published on 2/19/25 6:08 PM
Dimitar Radev

Request for extraordinary report on readiness for eurozone membership will be signed

BNB Governor Dimitar Radev will sign the request for an extraordinary convergence report on the fulfillment of the criteria for eurozone membership. This is clear from his response in an interview with BTA, in which Radev announced that the Central..

published on 2/19/25 5:33 PM

Train owned by Bulgarian railway company crashes in Romania, one person dies

A serious train crash involving a train owned by the Bulgarian company PIMK has occurred near Craiova, Romania. According to initial information, the train conductor of the private Bulgarian company, who is a Romanian citizen, died in the accident...

published on 2/19/25 4:46 PM