On August 19 the Mi-26T Captain of Tver Vertical-T Air Company, Mr. Valeriy Likhachev, was awarded the Order of Friendship. Recently courage and professional skills of this pilot have been appreciated even in the US White House: Barack Obama expressed his thanks through the Embassy in Washington.

Mr. Valeriy Likhachev was honoured with a high State award for his courage and professional skills showed during a special mission in the Republic of Afghanistan.

The Russian President Order on presentation of the honorary State order to the Captain was signed on February 2, 2011, however the pilot was on business trip all this time.

On October 14, 2009 the Rostvertol Plc Mi-26T crew successfully accomplished an air mission on evacuation of the US Army helicopter from of emergency landing site.

The American helicopter was shot down but the crew managed to land Chinook in the suburbs of Kandahar. In was impossible to fix the malfunction, also the helicopter could not take off. Initially the American military tried to evacuate the damaged Chinook with a help of a similar helicopter but resultless. The Chinook has 17 tons in weight.

Only the multipurpose Mi-26T designed to transport engineering and bulky cargoes weighing up to 20 tons was capable to lift up such cargo on the external load sling. The Mi-26T transported Chinook to th