4. 11. 2009 War plane near Belotín

The downed war plane and the remains of the pilot were pulled out of the ground by the workers of the Suchdol museum twelve years ago. The wreckage was located in a field between Bělotín and Lučice in Hranice. The aircraft belonged to the 224th Battle Division of the 8th Air Army and was tasked with supporting the fighting Red Army.

The plane, which crashed into a field during the liberation of Moravia and Silesia, has been searched for by experts in military history for ten years. The machine, equipped with a large amount of ammunition, was finally discovered between Bělotín and Lučice about forty centimetres underground.

It was an IL-2 battleship called the Sturmovik. According to historical records, it was supposed to have been shot down directly over Suchdol by a German anti-aircraft gun on 5 May 1945.

"The records from the Soviet war archives state that the machine crashed near Suchdol. However, no local memorialist remembers anything like that," revealed Petr Bartošík from the Military History Section of the Museum of the Municipality of Suchdol nad Odrou, who was one of the finders of the plane.

Together with other members of the Club of Friends of Suchdol nad Odrou, they came across a witness who confirmed that the plane had indeed been shot down near Bělotín. The pilot jumped out of the plane and was captured. But the man actually died in the cockpit.

The discovery was made by a farmer who was cultivating the field in question. He came across a shell casing, which was the first really important clue. By the following weekend, a large part of the Soviet machine had been recovered from the dirt. They discovered the cockpit and several human bones, the engine, the propeller blade, as well as cannons, three RS 82 rockets, several dozen two and a half kilogram bombs and other ammunition.

Subsequently, the finders were able to announce that they had indeed unearthed the lost plane with twenty-three-year-old pilot N. J. Motorin and thirty-seven-year-old gunner V. A. Gukosyan, who had been missing until then. As for the remains, they found, for example, a fragment of skull and a cheek joint.

The remains of the pilot were taken over by the Russian Embassy, and a police pyrotechnician from Ostrava came to collect the bullets from the on-board weapons and the RS-82 rocket, which were also uncovered by the excavator.

"The farmer, in whose field the plane was lying about forty centimetres below the surface, was quite frightened by what he had been driving his agricultural machinery over for so many years," Bartošík added.

Sources: www.denik.cz, www.idnes.cz