 |
Vladimir Ilyich Sharpatov (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Шарпа́тов, born March 21, 1940, Krasnogorkiy village of Zvenigovsky District, Mari El) is a civil aviation pilot and Hero of the Russian Federation (1996). An Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane under his command made a forced landing at the airfield near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in August 1995. All seven Russian nationals on board were subsequently held captive by the Taliban for a year until they successfully escaped by flying their own plane out of Afghanistan in August 1996. Russian actor Alexander Baluyev played Vladimir Sharpatov in the 2010 film Kandagar.