”Zoli Would Want Everything To Go On As Usual”
Szöveg: László Szűcs | 2008. július 5. 7:38”When I first heard the news about the crash of an Albatros, I thought it was impossible, it just simply could not happen. Later, as it turned out that it was true, I totally collapsed. I cannot find words even these days if I think about the events” – told a pilot to honvedelem.hu who used to be a classmate of 1st Lieutenant Zoltán Ignácz during the pilot training course.
"We started the training together in the framework of the NFTC programme in September, 2004. Our class was made up of students who had already graduated from college and later got close to military aviation" – recalled his memories the classmate of the 1st Lieutenant, who wished to remain unnamed.
He also told us that Zoltán had majored in Physics and Physical Education at the College of Nyíregyháza, then he used to work for the Police and the Border Guard. He told them many times that he had applied for the NFTC programme from the Border Guard – the reason for this was that he once flew in a helicopter as a border guard. He fell in love with flying and decided to be a fighter pilot. Then the opportunity came and he took it… His diligent work and talent enabled him to fulfil the requirements, and his dreams came true.
"We had completed all stages of NFTC together. We spent 2 years in Canada and used to work a lot together. We have lots of shared memories" – said his former colleague, then he started to talk about a story which came into his mind on the day when the accident happened: one day they were walking round the JAK–52 aircraft as excited ’rookies’. They were examining this type and were waiting for their turns. And today, one of these rookies is not alive… though this happened just four years ago.
"He had been preparing to be a Gripen pilot. He started a stage of the training last October, which was flying Albatros aircraft. He was going to start the training in Sweden next spring" – told us his former classmate who had also flown an Albatros on the day of the accident, in the western part of the country, near Pápa. They were on their way home above the Danube, when they heard Zoltán’s voice in the ether. They were taking off from the military airfield of Kecskemét.
"I think I managed to get over the first dismay in the past few days. Although it will be hard to get used to the fact that he is not there anymore, but I think Zoli would want everything to go on as usual. In my opinion he would not like his colleagues to collapse or to call off flights" – remembered the former colleague, who lives through this accident more painfully because the other victim of the accident was Lieutenant Colonel András Janicsek, his former instructor in Canada… he lost two close friends in an accident.
