A young Ukrainian pilot Dmytro Chumachenko was killed during an air battle in Zhytomyr region over the village of Tryhirya.
He was the commander of the aviation squadron of the military unit A0959 204 of the Sevastopol tactical aviation brigade named after Oleksandr Pokryshkin, based in Lutsk.
Having been damaged in a battle with the enemy in the Zhytomyr region, Dmytro took the downed plane away from rural houses and sent it into a forest belt, which saved dozens or even hundreds of lives.
The wife of the deceased pilot wrote a touching message about her husband, whom she married two years ago. Here is her post on Instagram.
"It was evening. I was sitting on the bed, Dima was standing next to me. We liked to talk a lot. The topic of flying, namely ejection, came up.
"How do you eject?"
"You have a handle between your legs that you need to pull.
"What about the plane?"
- You get thrown out, the plane falls.
– Wow…
- Would you think. But first of all, we should not think about ejection.
"And what about?"?
- Our task is to save people, if possible – we have to save the plane either. First of all, I have to direct the plane to a place where there are no houses, and only then think about myself.
"But you may not have enough time to eject…
He didn't make it, but he saved hundreds of lives. Courage, heroism, fearlessness."