I am missing something??? The pilot flew in cirlces until it ran out of fuel and ejected, just becuase he couldn't find his way home?
Dont russian pilots know how to navigate? Or was their some other curumstance such as bad weather that prevented him from finding his own way home?
It sounds fishy to me too. Even assuming all instruments out (which was not aledged), he still had a cell phone. Why not call home and have them vector him home?
Given that he had to put it down (for what ever reason) he may have been ordered to auger it in rather than try to land because the Russians realized they would never get the plane back anyway.
Russian Pilots get very little flight time these days. They were selling back seat hops to rich businessmen just to pay for fuel a few years ago.