By Ma Yichong
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Sept. 20 (ChinaMil) -- Two Mi-171 medium multi-purpose helicopters attached to the third Chinese peacekeeping helicopter contingent to Darfur successfully returned to El-Fashir Airport on Wednesday, after completing the task of transporting eight sorties of passengers and cargo.
This is the first multi-jet and multi-batch transportation task since it was deployed to the mission area earlier this month. The contingent is equipped with four Mi-171 helicopters. While two of them were carrying out the mission, the other two were responsible for emergency stand-by and medical evacuation respectively, meeting the UN requirements of keeping no less than 75 percent of the helicopters capable of takeoff around the clock with high standard.
During this task, the two helicopters lifted off from the El-Fashir Airport in Sudan, flew to the Kutum mission point 102 kilometers away to support the rotation of the Senegal peacekeeping police forces, and completed the transportation of 36 passengers and five tons of cargo. This was also the first time for them to carry out Kutum flight mission.
Kutum is a mission point located in the valley of the Marrah Mountains, where the helicopter parking apron has been idle for a long time and very adjacent to the military airport of the Sudanese government. There are many armed forces deployed along the route and the weather was also awfully poor on the mission day. All these had dramatically increased the difficulty of the task.