On April 11, 1964, for the first time, a trans-oceanic flight of the Bulgarian civil aviation was performed on the Sofia-Lima route.
In 1964, the Women’s World Basketball Championship was held in Peru. The Bulgarian national team qualified for the finals, but could not get there. The government sought assistance from Yugoslavia for the transportation of our athletes. Our western neighbour had a plane that could fly to America, but the request was not granted. Bulgaria also received refusals from Czechoslovakia and France. In fact, the French themselves were having difficulty and were looking for a way to transport their own team.
Despite the stalemate and the ban of the Soviet aircraft designers, the Bulgarian pilots Andrei Ivanov, Pavel Ignatov and Gospodin Gospodinov took a well-measured risk and made the flight with the modern for its time IL-18. The crew also included Pavel Ignatov – flight engineer, Serafim Kolchev – flight radiotelegrapher, Toma Todorov – navigator, Gospodin Gospodinov – navigator, Maria Ivanova and Slavka Grigorova – stewardesses, Petar Petrov – ground engineer.
The 16 123 km long flight is on the route Sofia – Paris – Dakar – Racife – Asuncion – Lima. Andrey Ivanov says the following about it:
“On board were not only the Bulgarian basketball players Vanya Voynova, Dora Vassileva and others, but also the teams of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and France. They kept asking us who was on the plane, because they thought it was the Soviet basketball players who took first place there, but they were traveling on an American plane.” In 2012, at a solemn ceremony, the three pilots were awarded personally by President Rosen Plevneliev with the Order of Civil Merit.
Andrey Ivanov has 20 000 flying hours, Gospodin Gospodinov – 16 000 flying hours and Pavel Ignatov – 15 000 flying hours.