Serbian pilot points to critical moment as he was returning team from Kosovo

The plane they were traveling to Pristina was forced to return for an emergency seat.

Jetullah Red, part of the team staff from Kosovo, relates the event.

We flew out of the plane there and the last one came out and wished us happy birthday, said “appy birthday”, in the sense that we were born in the second, that was wonderful. Then he pulled out his cigarette and thanked God for giving him the opportunity to light one again, said Jetullah Red, staff of the FC Balkans.

Ironically, Balkan team driver's lucky pilot was a Serb from Belgrade, Sasa Pejcic, who in an interview for Top Channel tells everything.

I am from Serbia and my first officer is in Montenegro by Niksic. There was a Balkan group there, I attended the match and was very upset because the Balkans went twice to no advantage. I'm glad because they're a new team, I'm 53 and I have a lot of experience not only in life, but in aviation, I've been flying for about 30 years and over 11,000 hours of flight”, said Sasa Pacic, FC Balkan plane pilot.

But what happened?

This is a normal, normal but normal situation in aviation, it can happen every plane and every flight. However, we followed the Boing procedure, and we succeeded in sitting down without problems. What happened had no effect on passengers, but it certainly had a lot of effect on me”, said Sasa Pejcic, pilot of the FC Balkan aircraft.

What would happen if the glass broke?

The aircraft's “Jim has three layered layers that join a glue, the glass crashes into various objects, and there must be flexibility. I also talked to other colleagues about what happened, and this is something that happens, but the right decision was to get back, keep up, and slow down if I climbed higher and the problem increased more rapidly. If the glass broke maybe it would have killed me, it was kind of hard to tell because it was night. But I followed the procedure and returned to Prague and did very well after the glass was limited. Everything went well as God had written”, said Sasa Pejcic, pilot of FC Balkan aircraft.

A Serb who saves the lives of over 70 Kosovars sounds like a fairy tale...

I have been flying from Kosovo since 2016, and in that year I have had another problem, but because of climate conditions, I had to divert to Pristina, but at that time flew to Air Serbia, which is not allowed to fly into Kosovo airspace. I asked the centre of control in Serbia that I have an emergency and you have to give me the radio line with NATO to seek an air corridor to sit in Kosovo. Our Control Center was confused, but it gave me permission to speak to NATO representatives who I explained to them that I risked the lives of some people and accompanied the trip to landing by 3 combat planes. I don't do politics or religion, I love all Balkan people”, the pilot said.

The Balkans hosted another plane, and another captain to return to Pristina by 7 hours late, yet the staff's connection with Sasha is already more than professional.

“As soon as Balkan representatives arrived in Pristina, they thanked me for everything and told me they were invited to Suhareka if you want”, Pejcic said.