The Grand llyushin

In the beginning, the sleek, up-to-date four-engined turboprop llyushin 18 was the pride of Russia's propagandists. But last August, Russian authorities were forced to announce the crash of an IL-18 flying from Cairo to Moscow because several Afro-Asian notables happened to be among the 27 killed (TIME, Sept. 5). After the crash the IL-18 was briefly grounded. The trouble seemed to be with the engine mountings (as with its U.S. counterpart, the Lockheed Electra) and with the engines. But IL-18s kept landing at African airfields as Russia's contribution to the U.N. Congo airlift. Inference was that whatever ailed the plane had been mended. Not so, a Russian IL-18 crew member at an African airport guardedly informed a TIME correspondent last week. In addition to the crash last August, at least three other IL-18s have crashed on flights inside Russia. Each had literally broken apart while flying through turbulence. In every case the break occurred just behind the rear passenger door. First-class passengers, who are seated in the rear compartment, complain of a violent sideways jarring motion in turbulent weather. After flying back from the Congo in an Ilyushin, a top Ghanaian official declared: "I will never fly in one of them again. It's like dancing the High Life at 18,000 feet."

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