Related articles

Historians in South Bohemia last Friday the 13th dug up the exceptionally well-preserved wreckage of a German fighter jet shot down during World War II. The Fw-190 Focke-Wulf, of which almost 20,000 were originally produced, went down near the village of Otín. The plane was one of several targeted by US pilots on August 24th, 1944 in what was one of the biggest air battles over Bohemia. The German pilot, Hubert Engst, ejected in time and would survive the war. But the aircraft itself smashed into the ground and remained lost and forgotten until

Exactly a century ago on May 13th of 1911 the first Czech aviator Jan Kašpar flew his Bleriot plane from Pardubice to Prague – at the time the longest flight ever undertaken in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A commemorative flight in a replica plane scheduled to celebrate the occasion on Friday failed to take place due to adverse weather conditions. Pilot Petr Mára said strong wind and poor visibility had made it impossible to take up the historic plane even for a symbolic circle around the town. The flight is expected to take place next week. In 1911 Kašpar flew his Bleriot at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour covering the 120 km distance from Pardubice to Prague in 1 hour and 32 minutes.

The Czech military has grounded its CASA transport planes due to a technical defect that was revealed after one of the planes ran into trouble on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the military’s general staff said a team of experts were investigating the cause of the defect. The CASA planes which the army purchased in view of their possible deployment in Afghanistan where Czech soldiers are taking part in the ISAF peacekeeping mission have been a disappointment. This is the third technical problem revealed since the beginning of the year and plans to deploy the aircraft in Afghanistan had to be put off after it emerged that the anti-missile protection system supplied by the Czech firm Omnipol was not functioning properly. Omnipol has asked for the postponement of the deadline by which it was to solve the problem from late April to mid-June.

Czech flag-carrier ČSA has ended a codesharing contract with Air France as it shakes up its operations. A spokeswoman for the airline said that due to ongoing restructuring, ČSA had reassessed several of its commercial contracts as it prepares its summer flights schedule. In specific cases, including the routes between Prague and Paris, Strasbourg and Marseille, ČSA will operate flights using its own planes only. However the spokeswoman made it clear that the state-controlled Czech carrier was not slamming the door of the SkyTeam airline alliance, in which Air France is a key player.

In this week’s Business News: AAA Auto seeks to roll out in Russia, president attacks pre-emptive pension reform, L-159 lined up for first foreign sale, picture still gloomy for DVD sales, and fewer forged notes and coins found in country.

A small one-engine plane with a two-member French crew was forced to make an emergency landing on a busy road on the outskirts of Brno on Sunday night. The two-seat plane ran out of fuel during the flight probably due to a technical defect and was forced to land on the road almost immediately after contacting air control about the emergency. Although the police had no time to clear the road the landing was successful and miraculously the plane did not collide with any vehicles. No one was injured.

Two unfortunate cops get a lesson in law from a man on a scooter; richest Czech businessman buys a new jet to fly in style; an historic plane which Jan Antonín Baťa flew around the world will return to the Czech Republic; and US actor Tom Cruise strips to the waist during the filming of Mission Impossible 4 in Prague.

Czech army pilots will have very little time to get used to new aeroplanes before they are deployed in Afghanistan at the start of next year, Hospodářské noviny reported. The Casa aircraft will only be available for training in the Czech Republic for a few weeks before pilots will have to fly them in Afghanistan, the newspaper said. One expert said such preparations would actually need several months. If the plan is approved by the Czech parliament, it will be the first time the country has sent planes to a war zone.

This year‘s CIAF international aviation festival in the city of Hradec Králové was visited by more than 50,000 people according to organisers. The event is the largest exhibition of military aviation technology in the Czech Republic; planes of all categories were on display, from transporters to turboprops and jets from 14 countries. Altogether some 100 vehicles and machines were on site. The show was the first in Hradec Králové since the festival relocated temporarily to Brno after 2002.

A military training aircraft crashed into a forest in eastern Bohemia on Monday evening; the two pilots ejected safely and no one was injured. Speaking to reporters at the scene, Army Chief of Staff Vlastimil Picek said that an engine malfunction in the Czech-made L-39 Albatros had caused a fire that then spread to the cockpit, affecting the controls. The two pilots – one a trainee and the other an instructor – then guided the plane to an uninhabited area and parachuted to safety. Six fire-fighting units were working Monday evening to extinguish two forest fires caused by the crash and complicated by the hot and dry weather. Albatros training aircraft have now been grounded pending an investigation by the Ministry of Defence. Another L-39 Albatros crashed in the summer of 2001 killing the pilot.