BUCHAREST, May 26 -- The late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's former pilot died after his crop-dusting helicopter crashed 18 miles (30 km) east of Bucharest, a local television station reported Friday. Vasile Malutan, 53, crashed the helicopter when it's tail tangled in high-tension wires across the field at Fundulea, the report said.
Malutan died on the way to hospital. On Dec. 22, 1989, Malutan saved Ceausescu from an angry mob by taking him off the roof-top of the Communist Party's headquarters in a military chopper. Malutan flew Ceausescu and his wife to a field 24 miles (40 km) north of Bucharest where he ordered them out of his chopper claiming he had run out of fuel. On Thursday, Malutan was summoned by a parliamentary commission investigating the events of December 1989 to give further evidence about the dictator's intentions before being tried and sumarily executed inside a military unit 37 miles (60 km) north of Bucharest.