Homemade Aircraft to Escape the Soviet Union: NSS Releases Archival Photo

A homemade aircraft designed to flee the Soviet Union has recently come to light. Today, the National Security Service (NSS) published an archival photo on its Facebook page, along with details about yet another attempt to escape from the Soviet regime.

It was 1973 when a crashed aircraft was discovered southwest of Yerevan, near Sovetashen (Nubarashen). Some speculated that the aircraft belonged to foreigners who had violated the state border, likely with malicious intent. However, investigations conducted by security agencies revealed that the aircraft was homemade and had actually been constructed on-site.

It turned out that four citizens of Soviet Armenia had attempted to build a homemade aircraft, utilizing the Soviet scientific magazine 'Юнный техник,' which outlined the process of aircraft construction. Their goal was to cross the Armenian-Turkish border.

The self-proclaimed experts had chosen an abandoned depot in Nubarashen for their project, where they stealthily brought in the necessary parts and equipment for the flying device at night. Interestingly, the experts later discovered that the homemade aircraft had been constructed almost perfectly. All calculations were accurate, with only the wind direction at the moment of takeoff miscalculated, which ultimately led to the crash.

The leader of the group that created the aircraft and the mastermind behind the idea of escaping to Turkey was Henrik Arakelyan, who was engaged in foreign currency trading, which was considered a crime in the Soviet Union. Henrik had managed to accumulate a considerable fortune that he could not liquidate within the USSR, and thus he needed a homemade aircraft to smuggle it out of the country.