Explosion in the sky above Sasnashen village
On September 2nd, 1958, there was an explosion in the sky above Sasnashen village. Villagers went out to streets and saw an airplane falling and military aircrafts flying around it. They heard shootings as well. The airplane fell down in several hundred meters from the populated area. Villagers run to the area of the plane crash hoping to save someone. However, it was late. While the villagers of Sasnashen were trying to find out what had happened, security services and military troops arrived in the village. Military aircrafts were still flying in the sky above the village. Security services investigated the area and strictly instructed all witnesses and villagers not to tell anyone about the incident. The silence had to last dozens of years…
In 1990 state archives were made public, and details about the incident in Sasnashen became available to public. Witnesses shared their memories.
On September 2nd, 1958, an American intelligence aircraft C-130A took a flight from the military base of Turkey’s Injirlik. The aircraft took a direction to the Turkish border with the Soviet Union. The Soviet radiolocation stations reported an object in the Soviet territory at 3:06p.m. The object crossed the border in the area of Leninakan (Gyumri) and was flying at 10,000 kilometers height. Four MIG-17 military aircrafts were sent to the area immediately. They tried to make the intelligence aircraft land. However, the American aircraft failed to react to the messages. One of the Soviet security aircrafts shoot with illuminated bullets to warn and make the aircraft land. However, the American ‘Hercules’ took a flight in the direction of Yerevan. The Soviet defense forces took this move as a sign of disobedience and potential threat to Armenia’s capital. This is when the defense powers were instructed to annihilate the American intelligence aircraft. In the sky above Sasnashen village, 44 kilometers South of Leninakan, the American intelligence aircraft was shot down. The incident killed 17 people, including 6 crew members and 11 operators of the intelligence system.
In several days after the incident the foreign affairs ministry of the Soviet Union sent a compliant letter the government of the United States, which wrote that only the bodies of 6 crew members had been found in the area of the incident and the Soviet government was ready to satisfy the request of the American party and give the bodies of the crew members to their families. In the meantime, the incident was introduced as a provocation.
During the cold war and after the WW, the people of Soviet Armenia expected a huge potential threat from this incident as the aircraft came from Turkey.
The American party did not answer the question what their aircraft was looking for in Armenia. They circulated a scenario, according to which the aircraft was supposed to fly from Adana to Trabzon, and lost the way, as a result of which crossed the border of the Soviet Union. There was no reasonable excuse to believe this scenario because two months before the incident (on June 27th, 1958) another American intelligence jet, C-118 Liftmaster, crossed the border of Armenia (30 kilometers South Yerevan) again, and was made to land in a field airport by Soviet defense forces. Some spies used parachutes, others were arrested in the airport. In addition, in the period of 1950-83 in the Soviet Union 27 jets that “had lost the way” were shot down, and 60 jets were forced to land.
The American government introduced the incident as heroism on the part of the crew members and assured that the crew members did their best not to let the jet fall on populated villages. By the way, some witnesses say that villagers found expensive watches and jewelry in the area of the plane crash, which made them think that the jet had been transporting humanitarian aid.
Years passed and Armenians raised a memorial in the area of the plane crash. On the memorial one can read messages about liberty and freedom. It is hard to understand what was in the incident of 1958 that was done for liberty. In 1993 Armenia hosted representatives of the American army, who examined the area of the plane crash and found remains of the bodies of the remaining 11 people and their belongings. In 40 years after the incident, in 1998, the victims of the incident were buried in Arlington cemetery, Virginia.
By Hovik Charkhchyan
