A UN rescue mission, a shoot-out and the injured helicopter pilot

Captain Serhiy Muzyka, who started his career in the Soviet army, never dreamt that his final deployment before heading into retirement after 43 years piloting helicopters would be play out like a Tom Cruise movie.

The 60-year-old Ukrainian ended up in a terrifying and deadly situation in South Sudan when what seemed like a routine operation for the UN earlier this month turned into the most dramatic of his career.

During his military service – that included 20 years in the Ukrainian army – he served in Afghanistan and other dangerous places. He also encountered other danger zones during his work as a private contractor, including rescuing victims of a plane crash in Somalia in 2015.

But the mission to evacuate wounded soldiers from a military base in Nasir in South Sudan’s northern state of Upper Nile is his most memorable.

A shoot-out at the base after they arrived ended up claiming the lives of a crew member and those of more than two dozen South Sudanese soldiers on the ground.

He himself was shot in arm, miraculously managing to lift off and steer the damaged helicopter to safety.

A little clip he filmed on his phone from inside the cockpit showed him bloody, the nearby controls covered in blood and the windscreen shattered as he and his co-pilot flew low over scrubland for nearly an hour to the nearest airport.

It was “like a movie”, he admitted to the BBC – clearly still shaken by events.

“I thought it happened in a dream,” added the pilot, who worked for a firm called Ukrainian Helicopters.

On the day of the shoot-out, the company had been contracted by the UN Mission in South Sudan to evacuate six injured soldiers, one of whom was a general, along with two of its negotiators.

UN peacekeepers are there trying to safeguard a peace deal that is fraying at the edges, with warnings the world’s newest country is about to plunge into another civil war.

The first one that erupted three years after independence lasted five years and killed nearly 400,000 people.

It pitted President Salva Kiir against Vice-President Riek Machar – with each garnering support from their respective ethnic groups.

The pair agreed to end the war in 2018 – and one of the aims of their power-sharing deal was to join their rival forces and create a unified military.

But recent clashes in Nasir county reveal the distrust over the slow progress on this.

The region is where a militia, known as the White Army, is based – its recruits fought in support of Machar during the civil war.

Communities there distrust regular army troops seen as loyal to Kiir and have been calling for the deployment of the unified force.

But last month, more regular army soldiers were sent to the area – a move Machar said was a violation of the ceasefire and transitional deal – and tensions flared.

Kiir’s side said the decision was a routine troop rotation, but the situation deteriorated rapidly when the White Army seized the army base on 4 March.

This is when Captain Muzyka and his team were called on to fly out trapped soldiers.

They had already done one trip – on 6 March – successfully extracting 10 people after landing at a designated point for the UN to use.

The next day they returned – and all was going according to plan until the passengers began to board.

Firing started and in the confusion it was difficult to tell what was going on.

The first Capt Muzyka knew something was seriously wrong was when he saw blood oozing from his left arm.

Then his flight attendant Sergii Prykhodko – who was standing in front of the chief UN negotiator – was shot.

Capt Muzyka knew they were under attack, and his military training kicked in: “Shooting started from the front and right and then from the left back. I decided immediately to perform take-off.”

As he lifted up he said he saw soldiers falling to the ground outside the aircraft.

“I couldn’t say exactly what time we spent [between the start of gunfire and taking off] – maybe a tiny part of a second.”

The frame of the helicopter continued to be hit as it became airborne, the fuel tanks were punctured.

They needed to get to the airport in the regional capital, Malakal, which was an hour away, and things were not looking good in the cockpit.

“Some systems were damaged – like the main gearbox,” he said.

The possibility of crashlanding was ever-present during the flight. So Capt Muzyka decided to fly as fast and as low as he could.

“The temperature of the oil was [at] critical – maximum, and I flew 100m [328ft] above ground level.”

That way, as per his calculations, he could perform an emergency landing within 20 seconds.

He also asked his crew to be on the lookout for clearings – free from trees and bushes – just in case one was needed.

In the meantime, the flight engineer stopped the bleeding on the captain’s arm by using his shirt as a torniquet.

In the video clip the torn shirt can be seen tied just above an elbow – blood was on his lower arm, trousers and spattered by his seat.

The footage also shows a trickle of clotting blood on his forehead before panning to the shirtless crew member and co-pilot, who had also been in injured.

He was experiencing pain in his right side, said Captain Muzyka.

“Fortunately, it was a small injury from plastic splinters from the right window.”

As they finally approached Malakal airport, they experienced more difficulty. The front wheel of the helicopter was blocked having taken a hit during the attack.

Nevertheless, Captain Muzyka managed to land successfully 49 minutes after taking off under fire and with more than 20 gunshot holes on its body.

“It was a big relief,” he told the BBC.

It was at that point that he felt some pain from his injury. It was so surreal he thought “maybe I’m sleeping”.

During his time as a military pilot, he said he had only ever come under attack once – in Afghanistan in 1987: “I saw a couple of bullets which came through my blades during a night flight. And that’s all.”

The crew and passengers were given medical attention as soon as they got to Malakal.

However, it was not possible to save 41-year-old Mr Prykhodko, who had died of his injuries.

“We couldn’t believe it,” said the captain.

Later the Ukrainian Helicopters crew were feted at a ceremony where they were awarded the UN medal of honour. The UN head of mission said the attack “may constitute a war crime under international law”.

It has been tough for the crew to accept the loss of their colleague – and the incident has all added to their worries about relatives back home who are under attack by Russian forces.

Capt Muzyka has now gone back to Ukraine for treatment and to see his family.

He hopes for the future that “common sense will prevail in the world”, and while he knows retirement is on the cards, he still feels young “because I can fly”.