After living in Russia for 5 years, I now live about half of the year in Novosibirsk, Russia and half just outside Atlanta, GA. While living there full time in 2003, an interesting thing happened. The Canadian Ambassador to Russia called a friend of mine in Novosibirsk who is a very influential American business man. My friend knows a lot of local higher ups. The Ambassador asked him if he could intervene in a touchy situation that was unfolding out at the international airport just outside of the city. Seems that a very wealthy business man in the Russian Far East had bought a Canadianiar aircraft of some sort for his own use. It was being delivered from Canada to the Far East of Russia over and through Europe. It landed in Novosibirsk for its last fuel stop before delivery. A huge stink was raised about "documents" which, if you've lived or worked or even visited Russia, you know is a cause for daily concern. The pilots, two total, had landed already in something like 6 cities in Russia due to fuel needs, military escorts ordering them down, or to drop off power brokers that had hitched a ride from earlier destinations. It's Russia so this should not come as a surprise. Anyway, the two pilots were just about at their wits end and were thinking of just dumping the plane there in Novosibirsk and getting back to good old Canada. My friend was asked to both pamper them a bit and to see if he could lesson the red tape that was mounting by the minute. It took about two days and who knows how many promises for who knows what but it finally got done.

As they were leaving, my friend asked them why they did not just come through Alaska down the Kamchatka Pennisula and into the Russian Far East. Shocked, they looked at him like such a thing was impossible. He told them that Alaskan Air used to fly to a number of Far Eastern Russian cities so there is more than enough emergency places to land if you need and not nearly as many "apparatchiki" to deal with. They said not that they would ever come back but they would let their bosses know of that option for future deliveries. The Canadian Ambassador was very grateful to my friend for working it out and assured him that he owed him one for the future.

From the eastern coast of Canada to southwest Siberia, these guys made many stops though the ones over Russian air space were clearly more than fuel related. I imagine there are some interesting stories out there of pilots who delivered planes to very out of the way destinations around the world.