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A friend in need is a friend in deed

ONA flew the Repatriation Flights for the United 
Nations High Commissioner, flying refugees out 
of Dacca, Bangladesh back to Karachi, Pakistan and 
other refugees back the other way. 

We flew the second part after Feb. 26, 1974. 

Our crews were based out of Karachi, staying in the 
Intercontinental Hotel there. On one of our trips to 
Bangladesh after staying overnight there, we got 
out to the airport and I started doing my preflight, 
but found the aircraft electrical system all screwed 
up and giving me wrong indications. 

The only thing maintenance could figure out was 
somebody must have connected 230 volts ground power 
instead of 115 volts and burned out four or five 
relays in the system. They (ONA) had to send some new 
parts and mechanics from Frankfurt to fix it, which 
took four or five days. 

There was a couple of Soviet Turbo-prop (Ilyushin-8) 
passenger aircraft doing the same flights as us and 
our rep. ask them if they had room to give our whole 
crew a ride back to Karachi. 

They did and we all got to ride on a Soviet aircraft. 
The Soviet Captain wanted to see our aircraft inside 
the cockpit, so we gave him a look see and then we 
said we would like to see inside their cockpit and 
he showed us onboard. 

That aircraft was built like a sea going ship, 
everything looked big, heavy and rugged. 

On that particular plane they had a separate 
compartment in the rear section of the cabin 
separated by a curtain that had enough seats to 
accommodate our whole crew. 

They gave us all a shot of Russian Vodka during the 
flight. When our plane was fixed, we got a ride back 
on the same Soviet aircraft to Bangladesh. 

After this operation was done there, we were to 
ferry the aircraft back to JFK, NY, but if I remember 
right we had trouble with an over fly rights along 
the route home. 

So till I find my missing log book or a crewmember 
on the same trip can confirm this, will have to let 
that part of the flight slide for now.