The Soyuz TM24 spacecraft landed safely on 2 March, returning cosmonauts Valeri Korzun and Alexander Kaleri, and German researcher Ewald Reinhold from the Mir 1 space station.
Korzun and Kaleri were launched in August 1996 and Ewald on 10 February.
The crew and the TM25 cosmonauts, Vasily Tsiblyev and Alexander Lazutkin, with US astronaut Jerry Linenger, extinguished a small fire in the Kvant 1 module of the Mir 1 on 23 February.
A crack in a lithium-perchorlate candle being burned in a controlled chamber to generate supplemental oxygen caused a small fire, exposing the crew to smoke for 7min.
The crew - which was six-strong at the time - donned respiratory masks and emptied three fire extinguishers to control the fire, described as "sparks and smoke". Because oxygen had been released from the candle, the fire caused burning "-like a volcanic eruption-foam was flying and there were even droplets of metal-electric cables caught fire-and control-panel knobs were burnt", according to reports.
Source: Flight International