Jiří Jogl

* 1953

  • „This one time, when we were in Zhůří and the helicopter was monitoring the state border, it crashed. It included captain Štefan Tóth, operator Petr Horák and flight technician Míra Melíšek. It was with the Mi-24D, it had worse characteristics, opposite the neighbour from the other side brought the helicopter up to a hover, it was hovering towards our state border. It was around Poledník, a hill 1315 metres high, on its leeward sides it created airflow, the so-called hair dryer, which spinned and knocked everything down. The helicopter lacked power and had a relatively low altitude. It didn't have the power to take off, rev up and fly away. It didn't even have the height to run it. It was standing, hanging, the helicopter started to fall, the hair dryer knocked it down. They fell into the forest there."

  • „In the period of the fading Cold War, cases of especially helicopters or slow-flying aircrafts violating the state border began to multiply. It was not in fashion. There were cases when they flew several kilometres inland. Assets were held against these targets, but they were fighters with supersonic or subsonic L39s, MIG 21s and MIG 23s. Their take off took a long time and it was difficult for them to distinguish between helicopters or slow-flying aircraft, the low altitude in which they flew made it hard to tell the difference. Sometime in November 1984, therefore, the deputy defence minister and the board of generals decided that a border post would be established and Mi-24 helicopters would be used there."

  • „It was not uncommon to see as many as seven helicopters flying along the state border, mostly led by the Cobra type, zigzagging around the bollards, but they did not reach us. Because on the other side we were flying again and they were quite worried about the 24. The Mi-24 had relatively strong armament, we really had it suspended, there were unguided S-5 missiles, two sides were full of them and 1,470 rounds in the machine gun. Then the violation of the national border almost disappeared."

  • „I remember one tragic event that still haunts me. There were two of us from Pilsen in the pilot school, me and Láďa Babka. I don't remember the year it happened, 1982 or 1983. But I will tell you the day and hour it happened. It was May 17th at 5:15 p.m. It was a beautiful day, at that time we practised flying at ground level, at 15 metres, we were supposed to go up to 7.5 metres. My colleague Láďa Babka set out with the captain on one of those low navigational flights. They reached the valley of the Uterský potok and between Bezdružice and Konstantinovy Lázně they suddenly noticed that there were power lines above them. They accidentally pulled on them, wanting to fly over them. But they lost control and ended up in a stream. It turned out tragically for all four, there was the captain, operator Láďa Babka and two on-board technicians, one in training and one instructor."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Plzeň, 09.02.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 03:37:11
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

We didn‘t rattle our guns, we enjoyed flying across the border

At the aviation day in Hradec Králové, Jiří Jogl and Pavel Špilka won the joint top prize (probably 1998)
At the aviation day in Hradec Králové, Jiří Jogl and Pavel Špilka won the joint top prize (probably 1998)
zdroj: archive of Jiří Jogl

Jiří Jogl was born on May 12, 1953 in Domažlice and grew up in Horšovský Týn. His father Jiří lived in France until he was sixteen. He later worked at a poultry farm and retired as the director of a large poultry farm in Klatovy. His mother Marie spent her childhood at the Kanice castle, where her father worked as a footman. She trained as a men‘s tailor and later worked as a clerk. Jiří Jogl trained as a mechanical locksmith and during his basic military service completed his high school graduation at a two-year officers‘ school. He worked at the Pilsen – Bory military airport as an aircraft mechanic. In 1979, he completed a one-year pilot school in Piešťany and became a helicopter pilot. He returned to Pilsen - Bory airport and piloted Mi-4, Mi-24D and Mi-24V helicopters. He became chief of staff and swarm commander of the 11th Helicopter Squadron in Pilsen in Bory. At the end of 1984, following the decision of the Ministry of National Defense, two helicopters of the 11th Helicopter Squadron moved from Pilsen to Zhůří near Horská Kvilda in Šumava. They became part of the system against slow and low flying targets. Jiří Jogl was one of the pilots whose task was to guard the state borders. He rose steadily in the military hierarchy, first becoming deputy squadron commander, then squadron commander, later on deputy regimental commander and finally regimental commander. In 1991, he was present at the formation of the Military Air Rescue Service, which served the Pilsen and Karlovy Vary regions from the Líně airport near Pilsen. He left the army in 2005. He then trained helicopter pilots in Ghana, Africa and the neighbouring Ivory Coast. He later conducted training in Nigeria as well. Since 2007, he has helped fight fires in Spain, Turkey and Greece. He is the chairman of the association Letci Plzeň (Aviators Pilsen) and vice-chairman of the national committee of the Czech Aviation Association, which is trying to prevent the destruction of the Líně airport near Pilsen. The Czech government supports the plan for the German company Volkswagen to build a large factory for the production of batteries for electric cars on the grounds of the airport. He has a son and a daughter, his son Jiří flies as his father once did with the military rescue service in Pilsen, his daughter teaches at an English school in Prague.