On July 28 - August 1 30 troops of the Lithuanian Air Force are training in an international water survival exercise Baltic Bikini 2014 in the territorial waters of Latvia (the Gulf of Riga).
The week-long training event involves over 100 flying personnel of the Lithuanian, Latvian and the Estonian Air Forces. At the exercise aircrews are practising survival after ditching and testing survival equipment handling skills.
The exercise is organised by the Latvian Air Force.
Open sea water survival exercise Baltic Bikini has been held annually since 2004 in one of the Baltic States.
Baltic Bikini on the Baltic Sea involved air crews from Lithuanian, Latvia and Estonia: pilots, flight engineers, weapon systems operators, flight surgeons.
The first exercise in the Baltic Bikini series took place under a joint Baltic-Danish project in Denmark. In 1999 under this project Denmark handed over to the Lithuanian Armed Forces on a non-reimbursable basis various rescuing equipment, trained crews for search and rescue activities and survival instructors. In 2004 the Baltic States began arranging the series on their own.
POC: PAO for the Lithuanian Air Force 1LT Andrius Dilda, mobile phone no. 0370 614 35 697.
