THE SIGHT & THE SOUND 3/14 : Balkan Bulgarian IL-18 LZ-BEU documentary from Tallinn to Shannon

This documentary features a flight onboard Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Ilyushin 18 from Tallinn to St. Johns in Newfoundland, Canada, almost two decades ago. The second leg takes us to Shannon for refuelling. This was one of the most awsome flight rotations I ever experienced in my life. I spent the next four days flying 24 hours onboard the Ilyushin, crossing the Atlantic in both directions. I learned to know one of the dearest friends, I had the priviledge to know, Racho Tossunov, who made all of this possible. Racho used to be Chief Pilot of the IL-18 department of Balkan. He was trying to keep the IL-18 alive for Balkan as long as possible. I tried to recruit some interest in the aviation enthusiast scene, published articles and more. However back 17 years ago, nobody was really seriously interested in chartering Eastern bloc aircraft for fun flights. A block hour on the IL-18 would have cost a mere 3.000 US$, which is a joke, compared to prices today. LZ-BEU went into history the same year and was stored until temporary flight assignments for Bulgarian Flying company and cargo kept her running.

I apologize for the poor quality of this video mostly because of the very first generation of digital camcorders.

Flight details
Flight : LZ 8633
Date : Friday, March 14, 1997
Aircraft : IL-18V
Registration : LZ-BEU
Former registrations :
CCCP-75870 (Aeroflot Soviet Airlines)
YE-AYE (Yemen Government
4W-ABO (Yemen Airlines)
Later registrations :
LZ-BFU (Bulgarian Flying Company and Bulgarian Flying Cargo)
EX-75427 (Phoenix Aviation)
EX-75427 (Daallo Airlines)
Built : 1963
From : Tallinn (TLL)
To : Shannon (SNN)
Take off : 07.40 h (0540 UTC)
Touch down : 10.02 h (1002 UTC)
Flying time : 4 hours 22 minutes
Flying distance : 2.480 km
Altitude : 7.900 m
Speed : 620 km/h
Captain : Tossunov, Racho
Captain : Bonev, Petr - in memoriam
First Officer : Medarski, Lavrin
Flight Engineer : Nedelchev, Christopher
Flight Engineer : Daskalov, Nikolay
Navigator : Spassov, Lubomir Stefan
Additional Crew : Hinkov
Additional Crew : Assenov
Additional Crew : Blagoev
Additional Crew : Parluzov
Cabin Crew : Georguieva-Yordanova Panayotova, Yordanka
Cabin Crew : Marinova-Ilieva, Elena (Lyonata)
Cabin Crew : Petrov