Military aircraft accidents in the USSR. Ten largest air crashes in the USSR and Russia

Much was kept silent in the USSR. Any information in no case was supposed to get into the Western media. The local domestic media also fell under the total super-secrecy of everything and everything.

In today's world, news is too accessible - in part, this has led to mass manipulation of people's minds. In Soviet times, the model of complete calm and order was fine-tuned to the ideal. Soviet citizens were not given information about large-scale catastrophes, about corruption, about violence, about aggression - they took care of their psyche. And if it was reported, then not immediately. Not to mention the representatives of the Western press... Thus, the illusion was created that everything was fine-tuned in a huge country, the economy was developing and progressing.

In fact, if you look at the scale - it was. We were a great power and there is some merit in this state control of the media. With all the freedom of speech and all the democratic bells and whistles today, I would rather start and end my day with good, kind, positive news, but it seems that there is simply no such news today. It has gone to the extreme - everyone is telling the truth, as it were, everyone knows everything. In reality, the reality of modern media looks something like this:

I have two news for you, one good and one bad. Which one to start with?
- Well, let's have a good one.
The good news is there is no bad news.
- Well, what's the bad thing?
There is no good news either...

Okay, now to the point of the article:

The largest, of course, is the well-known Chernobyl accident, which happened in 1986. The total number of people who died after the accident from radiation exposure is approximately 600 thousand people, of which approximately 4 thousand people died from cancer or blood diseases. The whole world became aware of the Chernobyl accident in a matter of hours. It was impossible to hide a catastrophe of this magnitude. But our list today includes other accidents that the authorities, for obvious reasons, preferred not to talk about, and it was forbidden to print about them for some time.

No. 1. Nuclear waste explosion at the Mayak chemical plant in Chelyabinsk-40 (1957)

It was the first radiation accident in the history of our country, the first atomic catastrophe in the USSR. The tragedy is better known as the "Kyshtym accident", since the chemical plant was located in Chelyabinsk-40 (now Ozersk), and Kyshtym was the closest city to it, indicated on the maps.

No one died directly from the explosion. On the first day after the explosion, servicemen from the nearest unit and prisoners from the colony, which was also nearby, were withdrawn from the affected area. And only a week or two after the accident, the evacuation of the local population began, and even then only from the most affected settlements.

An explosion, estimated at tens of tons of TNT, occurred in a container for radioactive waste: The cooling system has failed. But this story with the cooling system is the official version. There was another version - unofficial: a solution of plutonium oxalate was mistakenly added to the evaporator tank with a hot solution of plutonium nitrate. During the oxidation of oxalate with nitrate, a large number of energy, which led to overheating and explosion of the container containing the radioactive mixture. The container, located in a concrete canyon at a depth of 8.2 m, was destroyed, a concrete floor 1 meter thick and weighing 160 tons was thrown aside by 25 meters; from the explosion within a radius of up to 1 km, glass was knocked out in buildings; about 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere.

> for comparison: during the Chernobyl accident, about 380 million curies were emitted, that is, about 19 times more.

A huge territory with a population of 270 thousand people, which included three regions: Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen, turned out to be in the zone of radiation contamination.

Losses came later - among the hundreds of thousands of military personnel and civilian workers involved in the elimination of the consequences of the accident. All of them received significant doses of radiation. Now the nuclear reserve "East Ural radioactive trace" is located at the site of the accident. You cannot visit it: the level of radioactivity in it is still very high.

The authorities hid information about the disaster both from the population of the country and from the inhabitants of the Urals, who found themselves in the zone of radioactive contamination. A column of smoke and dust up to a kilometer high, flickering with orange-red light, was called the "aurora borealis" in the newspapers. But the fact of the accident in the Urals soon became known abroad. The Danish press was the first to report on this. True, the message was not entirely accurate: it claimed that some kind of accident had occurred during Soviet nuclear tests.

No. 2. Explosion of a ballistic missile at Baikonur (1960)

This was not the only catastrophe at Baikonur, but one of the largest that occurred at the cosmodrome during the Soviet period. It happened on October 24, 1960. A fundamentally new Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile R-16 was being prepared for launch.

The Chairman of the State Commission for testing the R-16 was the Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) - Marshal of Artillery M. I. Nedelin. As often happened in Soviet history, they wanted to make a gift for the 43rd anniversary of the October Revolution, to carry out the first launch before November 7th.

In a hurry, all conceivable and unimaginable violations of safety regulations were committed. As a result, during the tests there was a premature start of the engine and an explosion of propellant. Burned and later died from burns and wounds, according to various sources, from 92 to 126 people. Among the dead was Marshal Nedelin.

Information about the tragedy was classified, there were no official reports of the disaster. Relatives and friends of the victims were advised not to talk about the accident. Even Marshal Nedelin, according to an official statement, "died tragically in a plane crash."

The Roskosmos TV Studio devoted an interesting article to this tragic event. documentary: "The day the rockets don't launch."

No. 3. Collision of airliners over Dneprodzerzhinsk (1979)

This plane crash is one of the largest in aviation history. In terms of the number of victims in the history of the USSR, it ranks second, and among the collisions of aircraft in the world - the third.

In the sky over Dneprodzerzhinsk (Ukrainian SSR), two Aeroflot Tu-134 planes (Chelyabinsk-Chisinau and Tashkent-Minsk flights) collided, killing all 178 people on them. Among the dead were 17 players of the Uzbek football club Pakhtakor. On that day, in the Kharkiv control center, in violation of the instructions, an inexperienced dispatcher was in the most stressed sector. The situation was further complicated by the fact that one of the three air corridors was "booked" for the top party nomenklatura member Chernenko, who was supposed to fly that day to Brezhnev, who was vacationing in the Crimea.

When the controllers saw that the planes were going across each other, they gave the command to one of the sides to gain altitude. The answer was: “Understood.” The controllers calmed down, deciding that the command was being carried out by the right aircraft. In fact, the crew of the third aircraft in general answered - Il-62, flying to Tashkent. A minute later, two Tu-134s collided in the air ...

This catastrophe would have been hushed up, like the others, if it were not for the death of an entire football team, and from the major leagues. As a result, although this plane crash did not receive wide publicity in the USSR (only in the newspaper "Soviet Sport" a tiny note was placed about the death of "Pakhtakor"), but at the international level it was not hushed up.

No. 4. The death of an aircraft with the command staff of the Pacific Fleet near Leningrad (1981)

During takeoff from a military airfield in the city of Pushkin (near Leningrad), a Tu-104 transport aircraft crashed, in which were the commander of the Pacific Fleet, almost all of his deputies, half of the staff of the headquarters, the command of naval aviation, flotillas, brigades and squadrons.

At one point, the Pacific Fleet lost command. A total of 52 people died, among them 16 admirals. For comparison: during the entire Great Patriotic War, the Soviet fleet lost only four admirals.

The cause of the tragedy was the overload of the aircraft. In addition to heavy safes with maps and documents, they carried a lot of scarce goods that the authorities were able to get in Leningrad: household appliances, furniture, even fruit. The crew understood that the plane was overloaded, and informed the dispatcher about this, but he did not dare to object to the high authorities.

The overload of the tail section, the sudden increase in wind, the incorrect centering of the aircraft and, probably, the cargo that had shifted after takeoff - all this led to a disaster. The plane, after taking off at 50 meters, fell on the tail and starboard side and fell. Upon impact, the fuel caught fire - no one managed to survive. Eyewitnesses recalled that after the crash, the entire strip was covered with scarce oranges. After the disaster, all Tu-104s were decommissioned by the Air Force.

No. 5. The death of the ship "Alexander Suvorov" (1983)

cruise ship, going along the route Rostov-on-Don - Moscow, at maximum speed (25 km / h) entered under the non-navigable span of the Ulyanovsk bridge across the Volga and, by inertia, passed under the bridge for another 300 meters. As a result, the entire upper part of the ship was literally cut off: the cabin, the cinema hall, the chimneys. The situation was aggravated by the fact that at that time a freight train was crossing the bridge. Due to the collision of the ship with the bridge, the train was displaced by 40 centimeters. As a result, part of the wagons overturned, and their cargo (coal, grain, logs) spilled onto the ship, increasing the number of victims.

The death toll, according to various sources, ranged from 176 to 600 people. Difficulties with counting are due to the fact that the ship was overloaded. In addition to 330 passengers, 50 crew members and 35 service personnel, acquaintances and relatives of the crew members were not quite officially on board. To my misfortune most of passengers was on upper deck(in the cinema hall and on the dance floor), completely destroyed during the collision with the bridge - hence the large number of victims.

One of the main reasons for the tragedy that occurred late in the evening was the lack of signal lights on the bridge. In addition, on the ill-fated non-navigable span, there was a lineman's booth, which in the dark looked like a signal board marking the ship's span.

No. 6. The death of two trains near Ufa (1989)

This catastrophe is the largest in the history of the national railway transport. At the time of the oncoming passage of two passenger trains - "Novosibirsk - Adler" and "Adler - Novosibirsk" - there was powerful explosion. Of the 1370 passengers (among them 383 children), 575 people died (according to other sources - 645), of which 181 were children; 623 people were injured.

The explosion was so strong that the shock wave knocked out windows in a neighboring city, located more than 10 kilometers from the scene, and the column of fire was visible even for 100 kilometers.

What's next town! The explosion triggered the North American Air Defense System (NORAD) alarm! The Americans decided that the Soviets had tested another atomic bomb. According to experts, the power of the explosion was almost equal to the power of the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima.

What caused such a devastating explosion? On a nearby pipeline Western Siberia- Ural - the Volga region, along which a liquefied gas-gasoline mixture was transported, a hole of one and a half meters was formed. The gas released through the hole accumulated in a lowland, not far from the railway track.

A few hours before the disaster, the instruments showed a drop in pressure in the pipeline. However, instead of looking for a leak, the personnel on duty only increased the gas supply to restore pressure. As a result, even more gas leaked out under increased pressure. The drivers of the passing trains warned the section dispatcher that there was a strong gas contamination on the stage, but they did not attach any importance to this. Ctrl + Enter .

fresher>> ## [The biggest plane crashes in the USSR]

January 3, 1965
landing at the airport of Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR) at night, in weather conditions below minus, the Il-18 B plane crashed. 64 of the 103 passengers and crew on board were killed.

March 8, 1965
while climbing while taking off from the airport in Kuibyshev, he lost control and the Tu-124 V aircraft crashed. 25 people died.

January 1, 1966
- due to an engine stop after takeoff at the Darvaza airport (Turkmen SSR), the Li-2 aircraft lost control and crashed. 28 people died.

February 16, 1966
due to a fire on board on the territory of the Komi ASSR (70 km north of Pechora), an Il-14 passenger plane crashed. All 35 people died.

February 17, 1966
during takeoff at the Sheremetyevo airport (Moscow), the Tu-114 aircraft touched the landing gear of a snowdrift, collided with the ground and caught fire. 21 people died.

November 24, 1966
plane crash near Bratislava (Czechoslovakia): after takeoff, the Il-18 B aircraft of the Bulgarian-Soviet society does not follow the prescribed routes and crashes into a wooded hillside. All 82 people on board die.

March 12, 1967
due to a fire on board in the area of ​​​​the city of Pokrovsk (Yakut ASSR), an Il-14 aircraft crashed. 15 people died.

November 16, 1967
during takeoff from the Koltsovo airport (Sverdlovsk), an Il-18 V aircraft crashed due to engine failure and a fire. 89 people died.

December 30, 1967
near Liepaja ( Latvian SSR) due to engine failure, the An-24 B aircraft crashed. 44 people died.

January 6, 1968
near the city of Olekminsk (Yakut ASSR), an An-24 B aircraft crashed. For an unknown reason, there was a sudden destruction of the structure of the aircraft in the air. According to rumors, he could have been hit by a missile. 45 people died.

February 29, 1968
in the Irkutsk region (160 km from the city of Bratsk) due to a sudden accident on board, an Il-18 D aircraft crashed. 90 people died, 1 passenger - a soldier - miraculously survived.

May 29, 1969
in the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (40 km west of the city of Olekminsk), an Mi-2 helicopter crashed due to overload. 25 out of 26 passengers were killed, the crew survived.

June 23, 1969
in the sky over the Kaluga region there was a collision of the An-12 military transport aircraft and the passenger Il-14. All passengers and crew members (on board the An-12 there were 91 paratroopers and 5 crew members, on board the Il-14 - 24 people) died.

August 26, 1969
while landing at Vnukovo airport (Moscow), an Il-18 B aircraft crashed (the crew forgot to release the landing gear). 16 of the 102 people on board were killed.

January 28, 1970
in the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (40 km from Batagay), an An-24 B aircraft collided with a snow-covered rocky slope of a mountain. 34 people died.

January 29, 1970
near the city of Murmansk, due to a premature descent, it hit the top of a hill and the Tu-124 V aircraft crashed. 11 people died.

February 6, 1970
in the area of ​​​​the city of Samarkand (Uzbek SSR), an Il-18 aircraft crashed. 92 people died.

April 1, 1970
near the city of Krasnoyarsk, an An-24 passenger plane crashed. All passengers died (including the youth volleyball team) and crew members - 45 people.

May 15, 1970
near the city of Chisinau (Moldavian SSR), the An-10 A plane lost control and crashed, with cadets from the Ulyanovsk ShVLP making a training flight on board. 11 people died.

September 2, 1970
in the area of ​​​​the city of Dnepropetrovsk (Ukrainian SSR), the Tu-124 aircraft crashed due to loss of control. 37 people died.

September 3, 1970
near the city of Leninabad (Tajik SSR), a Yak-40 plane collided with a mountain. 22 people died.

December 31, 1970
Immediately after takeoff from Pulkovo Airport (Leningrad), the Il-18 plane crashed due to crew errors. 78 people died.

January 22, 1971
15 km from the airport of Surgut ( Tyumen region) when transferring to the base airfield, he lost control due to icing of the wing and the An-12 B aircraft crashed. 13 people died.

March 31, 1971
near the city of Voroshilovgrad (Ukrainian SSR), while landing, for an unknown reason, he lost control and the An-10 aircraft crashed. 64 people died.

July 25, 1971
near the airport of Irkutsk, a Tu-104 plane crashed due to a descent at an excessive speed. 97 people died.

October 10, 1971
in the Moscow air zone (about 60 km from the Vnukovo airport) due to an explosion in the cargo compartment, the Tu-104 B aircraft crashed. The main version of the cause of the explosion - terrorist act. 25 people died.

November 12, 1971
during the 2nd landing approach at the airport of Vinnitsa (Ukrainian SSR) with low cloud cover and in conditions of drizzling rain with a roll, the An-24 B aircraft crashed (fell near the runway and burned out). 52 people died.

December 1, 1971
An-24B aircraft crashed in the steppe while landing at the Saratov airport. 57 people died.

May 4, 1972
near the airport of Bratsk ( Irkutsk region) during the landing approach, the Yak-40 aircraft hit the ground and hit the wind shift. 18 people died.

May 16, 1972
for a kindergarten in Svetlogorsk ( Kaliningrad region) collapsed the An-26 military transport aircraft that lost control. 32 people died, including the crew of the aircraft and all 23 children. Subsequently, 2 more people died from their wounds. (kindergarten workers), several mothers committed suicide.

May 18, 1972
on the approach waiting circle near the airport of Kharkov (Ukrainian SSR), an An-10 aircraft was destroyed in the air. 122 people died. (114 passengers and 8 crew members), including a delegation of pioneers from the GDR and the famous Soviet pop parodist V. Chistyakov.

August 31, 1972
near the city of Magnitogorsk (Chelyabinsk region), an Il-18 aircraft crashed due to a fire on board. 102 people died.

October 1, 1972
after takeoff from Adler airport ( Krasnodar region) for an unknown reason fell into the sea and sank the Il-18 aircraft. 118 people died.

October 13, 1972
the Il-62 aircraft, owned by the GDR and flying Paris-Moscow, crashed near the village during landing in bad weather conditions. Ozeretskoye, Dmitrovsky district, Moscow region. There were 176 people on board, all died. The exact cause of the crash has not been established.

January 22, 1973
near vil. Pikhtovka, Chastinsky district, Perm region, an An-24 B aircraft crashed. 44 people died. It is possible that the aircraft was hit by a surface-to-air missile that deviated from the trajectory.

February 19, 1973
when landing at the airport in Prague (Czechoslovakia), for an unknown reason, the Tu-154 aircraft collided with the ground. Killed 66 of the 100 on board.

February 24, 1973
on the territory of the Tajik SSR (40 km from Ura-Tyube) the plane "IL-18 V" crashed. 79 people died.

February 28, 1973
shortly after taking off from the airport of Semipalatinsk (Kazakh SSR), the Yak-40 plane crashed (fell to the ground, crashed and burned down). According to one of the versions, the reason was the hit in the cockpit of a projectile from an infantry fighting vehicle cannon, which was moving in a convoy from the exercises. 32 people died.

May 11, 1973
near the city of Semipalatinsk (Kazakh SSR), for an unknown reason, an Il-18 B aircraft crashed in the air. According to unconfirmed rumors, the plane was shot down by air defense systems during the exercises of the Central Asian Military District. 61 people died.

May 18, 1973
near the city of Chita, a hijacked Tu-104 aircraft crashed: on board, a hijacker wounded in the back was able to detonate a bomb. 82 people died.

June 3, 1973
crash of the Tu-144 aircraft at the International Air Show in Le Bourget (France). During a demonstration flight, due to overloads, the plane fell apart and exploded. The crew (6 people), 8 French spectators were killed, several buildings of the Parisian suburb of Goussainville were destroyed, on main street which fell the wreckage of the aircraft.

August 18, 1973
shortly after takeoff on the An-24 B aircraft, the turbine and engine were destroyed. On the way back to the airport, he collided with the oil platform of the Oil Rocks field (Azerbaijan SSR). 56 people died.

September 30, 1973
after taking off from the airport in Sverdlovsk due to equipment failure and spatial disorientation of the crew, the Tu-104 aircraft crashed. 108 people died.

October 1973
almost immediately after takeoff from the airport of Lvov (Ukrainian SSR) on board passenger aircraft"IL-18" a fire broke out. The pilot tried to return, but the plane exploded over a field north of Lvov. More than 100 people died. The consequences of the explosion were liquidated within 3 days.

October 13, 1973
on approach to Moscow, due to a failure of the electrical system and disorientation of the crew, the Tu-104 aircraft crashed. 122 people died.

December 7, 1973
when landing at Domodedovo airport (Moscow) in case of difficult weather conditions The plane "Tu-104 B" crashed. 16 people died.

December 16, 1973
in the Moscow region near the village. Karacharovo, Volokolamsk district, due to the failure of on-board equipment, the Tu-124 V plane crashed. 51 people died.

December 23, 1973
due to a fire in the engine near the city of Lvov (Ukrainian SSR), the Tu-124 V aircraft crashed. 17 people died.

January 6, 1974
while landing at the military airfield in Mukachevo (Ukrainian SSR), the An-24 B plane crashed in the mountains through the fault of the crew. 24 people died.

April 27, 1974
near Pulkovo Airport (Leningrad) due to strong vibration and a fire in the engine, the Il-18 aircraft crashed. 118 people died.

May 23, 1974
Near the city of Kyiv (Ukrainian SSR), a Yak-40 plane crashed while landing. 29 people died.

November 1, 1974
During landing approach near the city of Surgut (Tyumen region), the An-2 aircraft collided in the air with the Mi-8 helicopter due to poor visibility. 38 people died.

Above Sinai Peninsula October 31, 2015, which claimed the lives of 224 people, became the largest in terms of the number of victims in history domestic aviation. Until that moment, the most bloody was the crash of the Tu-154 over Uchkuduk, which occurred 30 years ago, on July 10, 1985.

The Uzbek urban-type settlement of Uchkuduk, located in the central part of the Kyzylkum desert, until 1979 was not only known to little people in the USSR, but had the status of a closed secret strategic facility. In the late 1950s, geologists found uranium ore in these places, and then gold, after which a mining and smelting plant was built there, around which an urban-type settlement first arose, and then a city, most of whose inhabitants worked at the plant.

Uchkuduk. Photo: Frame youtube.com

In 1980, Uchkuduk stepped out of obscurity into song. The hit "Uchkuduk - Three wells", performed by the vocal and instrumental ensemble "Yalla", became incredibly popular in the USSR.

About the fact that five years later, the bloodiest disaster in history occurred near Uchkuduk civil aviation USSR, they know much less. In the Soviet Union, there was little and reluctant writing about major incidents with human casualties, and at the dawn of perestroika this principle continued to be strictly observed.

Night flight

On July 10, 1985, the Tu-154B-2 aircraft of the Tashkent joint squadron of the Uzbek Civil Aviation Administration was supposed to make regular flight No. 5143 on the route Karshi - Ufa - Leningrad.

There was intense heat. The air temperature at Karshi airport at the time of the plane's departure at 23:00 Moscow time was 33 degrees Celsius.

City of Karshi. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

The flight took off with a four-hour delay, and the passengers were very tired from the heat and the long wait. The crew spent hours before departure in similar uncomfortable conditions.

The plane was overcrowded: there were 191 passengers and 9 crew members on board. There were several dozen children among the passengers. According to some reports, there were not enough seats for all passengers, and parents had to put small children on their knees. Nevertheless, such important indicators as the takeoff weight and balance of the aircraft did not go beyond the operating limits. True, these figures were normal for normal conditions, and not for highly superheated air with low density, in which engines operating at nominal mode cannot provide heavy aircraft the required thrust reserve.

153 seconds fall

Nevertheless, at 23:00 Tu-154 took off from Karshi airport and slowly began to climb. At about 23:40, the liner gained a height of 11,600 meters, but after that it suddenly began to decline. The crew managed to report engine failure and attempts to bring the situation under control. Despite the efforts of the pilots, the plane was rapidly losing altitude.

At 23:46, the aircraft hit the ground in a desert flat area 68 km northeast of Uchkuduk. Tu-154 completely collapsed and burned down. All 200 passengers and crew on board were killed.

An investigation of the crash showed that at an altitude of 11,600 meters the plane lost speed and fell into a flat tailspin. The state of a flat spin, that is, the critical flight mode, which consists in its decrease in a steep downward spiral of small radius with simultaneous rotation about all three of its axes, for the Tu-154 means an inevitable disaster. Only test pilots on the Tu-154, equipped with a special anti-spin parachute, managed to take an aircraft of this type out of a flat spin.

Flight 5143 had no such facilities. For the last 153 seconds, the Tu-154 was falling, having practically no hope of salvation.

Investigation Conclusion: Crew Error

The official conclusion about the crash stated that it was caused by the aircraft stalling into a flat tailspin in flight at the height of the practical ceiling with a large flight mass under the influence of high non-standard ambient temperature, a small margin in angle of attack and engine thrust. It was noted that the Tu-154 crew made a number of deviations from the instructions, lost speed and failed to pilot the aircraft.

The voice recorder of the crashed plane was seriously damaged, but the device that fixes technical specifications, is much better preserved.

It was the data of this black box that showed that the Tu-154 during the climb was moving at a speed lower than recommended by the aircraft flight manual. At an altitude of 5300 meters, the pilots turned on the autopilot, under whose control the further climb took place.

The horizontal speed gradually decreased, the plane turned up its nose, which threatened to stall into a tailspin. On board, the AUASP device was activated, which is designed to monitor the current angle of attack and alert the crew in case of reaching a close to critical or critical angle of attack. After the first activation, the crew did not take appropriate measures, and then, for unknown reasons, the AUASP device stopped signaling a dangerous situation.

The flight took place at night, and the crew, apparently, did not fully realize how dangerous the Tu-154 was in.

When the plane began to shake, which meant that it was about to fall into a tailspin, the pilots mistook what was happening for a surge - an emergency engine operation caused by internal turbulent phenomena. In this situation, one of the crew members, most likely a flight engineer, switched the engines to idle twice to stop the “surging”, which aggravated the situation.

As a result, low speed at a very high angle of attack led to a stall in a flat spin, from which there was no way out.

Did the pilots fall asleep in the cockpit from fatigue?

Colleagues of the dead pilots insisted that it was not only a crew error. They pointed to the flaws in the design of the aircraft itself, as well as non-compliance with the rules of work and rest for pilots. According to them, the crew was awake for at least 24 hours before the flight in the most difficult conditions of the Central Asian heat. According to the documents of the investigation, the crew assigned to flight No. 5143 arrived from Tashkent on the same plane on flight U-175 at 18:18, flying to passenger cabin as service passengers; there is no official data on their pre-trip rest in Tashkent.

Since the voice recorder was severely damaged, there is no information about what happened in the cockpit. There is an assumption that the crew, exhausted by the heat, after turning on the autopilot, simply fell asleep, and when they woke up, they did not understand the situation. As a result, when reaching angles of attack of 20-25 degrees, the Tu-154 engines switched off, which the aircraft commander managed to inform the dispatcher about.

The last message from the Tu-154 read: “Random rotation of the aircraft. I'm taking action." By this time there was no way to prevent the tragedy.

1923

• On July 16 at 20:25 at the Central Airfield (Khodynskoye Pole), a Dobrolet Junkers-13 Chervonets crash occurred, a red military pilot Alexei Vasilyevich Pankratiev died, a mechanic and 3 passenger cadets of the Air Force Academy were injured. During a planned flight, the engine suddenly failed, the pilot went for an emergency landing, but the plane hit telegraph wires and collided with the ground. News of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. 1923. July 17, July 18.

1925

• On March 22, in the region of Tiflis, a Junkers F.13 passenger plane crashed, killing all on board, 5 people.

1926

• On May 19, a passenger plane crashed in Kharkov on a Tiflis-Moscow flight. 2 passengers died, including Grigory Rosenblat, an employee of the Pravda newspaper. The pilot, mechanic and 2 passengers were seriously injured. The plane, during the descent, collided with a wooden building.

1935

• On May 18, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe Central Aerodrome of Moscow (the village of Sokol), a fighter pilot Nikolai Blagin crashed into an eight-engine giant aircraft ANT-20 "Maxim Gorky", which was performing a demonstration flight with advanced production workers. 11 crew members and 38 (according to other sources - 50) strike passengers from engineers, technicians and workers of TsAGI and their families, + a fighter pilot, died.

1941

• On October 4, 50 minutes after takeoff from Kegostrov airport, near the Isakogorka station, the PS-43 No. L-3931 plane (according to other sources, L-3031) of the 3rd Separate Communications Air Division of the USSR Civil Air Fleet, following the route, crashed Arkhangelsk-Moscow. The commander V. A. Karapalkin, the flight mechanic V. M. Kozharinov, the passengers Toivo Antikainen, the courier of the General Staff A. I. Gerasimov and the head of the medical service of the Northern Special Separate Air Squadron of the Civil Air Fleet, doctor K. A. Tereshkovich, died. The cause of the disaster is an error in piloting in bad weather conditions.
• 26 December – Aeroflot's G-2 (cargo-passenger version of ANT-6) crashed in the vicinity of Alma-Ata, killing 26 people, including a number of leaders of the Kazakh SSR. Main article: G-2 disaster near Alma-Ata

1942

• On February 16, 1942, the R-5 aircraft ( side number L-3316), en route from Stalinabad to Khorog (pilot Knyazhnichenko V.V. and six passengers, two of them children) were on board at about 15:00 local time in the Kalai-Vamar tract at an altitude of about 4400 m in difficult weather conditions (low cloudy, fog) made an emergency landing. The aircraft was destroyed (only the fuselage and the left upper plane remained intact). The pilot and passengers survived with minor injuries. On February 28, the pilot and three male passengers left to look for housing and help (one of them fell into the gorge during the transition and died), leaving passenger Gureeva with two children on the plane. Within a few days, the three men reached the village of Matraun, where they were picked up by local residents and transported to Khorog. In the village, none of the three remembered Gureeva with her children. Gureeva was discovered by a search expedition (organized to evacuate an aircraft engine from the crash site for the purpose of its further use) only at the beginning of May (the children had died of starvation by that time). A criminal case was initiated on the fact of leaving a woman with children in a hopeless situation. Three men received different terms of punishment (the pilot was sent to the front in a penal battalion).
• On May 12, 1942, the PS-84 aircraft (serial number 1842406) of plant No. 18 of the NKAP of the USSR, flying along the route Kuibyshev (Bezymyanka) - the airfield of plant No. 381 of the NKAP (Valegin Bor, Nizhny Tagil) with two service passengers on board - the director Plant No. 18 NKAP M.B. Shenkman and deputy chief engineer of the plant Lvov. In difficult weather conditions, the aircraft descended to a height of 700 m, collided with the rocky peak of Mount Golaya (Shaitan) 748 m high and completely collapsed. The crew (4 people) and passengers were killed. The crash site was discovered two days later, 9 km southeast of the village of Kordon, Visimsky district, Sverdlovsk region (48 km southwest of the airfield of plant No. 381).

1944

• On November 13, a plane crashed near Moscow, returning from the partisan region (according to other sources, from Bucharest). Among the dead was the poet Iosif Utkin.

1945

1947

• On April 1, at the Smyshlyaevka airfield (Kuibyshev), an A-20B aircraft (tail number USSR-M279) of the Main Directorate of the USSR Hydrometeorological Service (Kuibyshev Separate Squadron) crashed. During the forced landing of the aircraft, the navigator tried to leave the aircraft, was seriously injured and died in the hospital 2 hours later.

1950

• On January 5, in extremely unfavorable weather conditions (a strong snowstorm, with sharp gusts of wind), a Li-2 plane crashed while landing in Sverdlovsk with 11 hockey players, a doctor and a masseur of the Air Force team, heading for a match with Dynamo.

1953

• On May 1, an accident in the test flight of the Tu-95 / 1 aircraft near the city of Noginsk: a fire in the 3rd engine, which soon engulfed the entire aircraft. The crew of 4 people died under the leadership of the hero of the Soviet Union, test pilot A.D. Flight.
• On May 29, at the airfield of the Air Force Research Institute (Zhukovsky), an Il-12 aircraft taking off and a Mi-4 helicopter undergoing state tests collided. The reason is the inattention of flight management and pilots. 5 crew members of the IL-12 and 3 on the Mi-4 were killed.
• July 27 during the flight over mountainous areas China (according to other sources - over the sea on the beam of the Yangtze River) an American fighter attacked and shot down a Soviet military transport aircraft of the Pacific Fleet Il-12, flying from Port Arthur to Ussuriysk. The crew and all passengers - 21 people, were killed.

1954

• April 4, 1954 in Latvia from the Liepaja military airfield, a La-15 jet fighter that had just taken off fell on the city. The pilot and 6 residents of the city were killed.
• On October 24, in cloudy weather, a Tu-75 aircraft en route from Kazan to Moscow crashed. The alleged cause is engine failure. 4 crew members were killed, led by Major General of Aviation A.I. Kabanov.
• On December 3, over the waters of Peter the Great Bay off the coast of Primorsky Krai, fighters of the Pacific Fleet Air Force mistakenly shot down a Tu-14T torpedo bomber. The crew was not looking.

1955

• On February 15, in the Shkotovsky district of the Primorsky Territory, the IL-28T 1535 torpedo bomber aircraft aviation regiment Air Force of the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Navy. The cause of death has not been established. The aircraft and crew were written off as missing.

1956

• On March 13, during the testing of the Il-28 aircraft, the test pilot of the Air Force Research Institute, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Major G.M. Parshin. Flight radio operator S.P. died with him. Goryunov and cameraman Rostovtsev, who was supposed to film the refueling of the MiG-19 from the Tu-16.

1957

• On August 15, while landing in Copenhagen (Denmark), a Soviet Il-14P aircraft collided in fog with a power plant pipe, fell in the city's harbor and sank at a depth of 5 m. 23 people died.
• August 17 Kyiv collided 2 cargo aircraft IL-14. The reason is a dispatch service error. After the collision, the wreckage of the planes collapsed on the residential buildings of the city. 9 people were killed - crew members.

1958

• On March 18, while performing an experimental take-off without boosters at the LII MAP airfield in Zhukovsky, Moscow Region, a Mi-4 helicopter crashed. Of the 7 crew members, 6 were killed.
• On April 29, during the first test flight near Voronezh, an Antonov An-10 crashed. The reason is engine failure. The crew made a rough forced landing in a field near a small river, during which the aircraft was destroyed. The flight engineer died.
• On June 9, near the city of Magadan, in conditions of rain and significant cloudiness, while descending for landing, an Il-12 aircraft crashed into a hill. The crew of 4 and 16 passengers were killed.
• On July 13, a Tu-16 aircraft of the Air Force Research Institute crashed in the Shchelkovsky district of the Moscow region. When landing in heavy rain crashed into residential buildings in the village of Khotovo, causing a fire accompanied by explosions of ammunition and oxygen tanks. 6 of the 7 crew members died, 7 people on the ground, 1 received severe burns. 2 residential buildings burned down, 4 houses were destroyed by a falling plane. 2 firefighters were injured while putting out the fire.
• On July 18, 5 military aircraft of a military unit stationed near the city of Chernyakhovsk (Kaliningrad Region) dropped 39 combat air bombs on the village of Stulialiai (Kybartsky District of the Lithuanian SSR) during exercises. As a result, 3 people were killed and wounded, 2 houses were destroyed, 3 cows were killed and a state farm tractor was put out of action.
• On August 15, a Tu-104A passenger plane crashed near Birobidzhan (Jewish Autonomous Region). The reason is that at an altitude of 10,800 m, in perfectly clear weather, it fell into an ascending turbulent flow and turned out to be above its practical ceiling at an altitude of 12,000 m, where it lost speed and fell into a tailspin. 64 people died.

• Tu-104A plane crash on October 17, 1958. 73 people on board were killed: the entire crew - 8 people and passengers - 65 people.

1959

• On January 18, on approach to Stalingrad, an Il-14 plane crashed while flying Moscow (Vnukovo) - Baku. during the landing approach, he came under machine-gun fire from the ground (a training firing was going on at the training ground near the airport). 25 people died.
• On November 16, an An-10 passenger plane crashed near Lvov Airport (Ukrainian SSR) while approaching the runway for an unknown reason. 40 people died.

1962

• On June 30, near Krasnoyarsk, an anti-aircraft missile mistakenly shot down a Tu-104 passenger plane of the Aeroflot airline, en route Khabarovsk - Moscow. 86 people were killed, including 8 crew members.

• September 3 in the Nanai region (Khabarovsk Territory). Tu-104A Aeroflot operated a passenger flight from Khabarovsk to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, but 10 minutes after departure, the plane crashed to the ground, killing 86 people.

1963

• Tu-124 landing on the Neva - an aviation accident that happened in the sky over Leningrad on August 21. As a result of a combination of circumstances, the Tu-124 passenger plane splashed down on the Neva. One of the world's first landings civil aircraft V emergency to the water.

This event is one of the few successful landings among airliners, when all passengers and crew members survived.

1964

• Catastrophe Soviet aircraft IL-18 ("Aeroflot") during landing at the airport of Belgrade (Yugoslavia), as a result of which the Soviet military delegation died.

• On September 16 at 16:45 at the Gostomel airfield, during takeoff with an imitation of engine failure, the An-8RU crashed. 20 s after the start of takeoff at a speed of 220 km/h, both accelerators were switched on, and after another 6 s, the left engine was switched off. However, the propeller, which switched to the autorotation mode, did not automatically feather. The crew could not fend off the progressive roll and slip with the rudders. At a distance of 1850 m from the launch site, the aircraft with a left bank of 70-80 ° collided with the ground and exploded. All crew members died: A. F. Mitronin (FAC), A. M. Tsygankov (co-pilot), V. N. Popov (test navigator), P. S. Melnichenko (flight operator), N. A. Petrashenko ( flight mechanic), B. L. Sklyarsky (experimental engineer), G. S. Karpinsky (experimental engineer).

1965

• On November 10, Aeroflot's Tu-124B crashed near Murmansk, operating Flight 99 (Leningrad-Murmansk), killing 32 people.

1966

• The plane crash in Sheremetyevo Tu-114 occurred on February 17. The aircraft with tail number 76491 was flying on the route Sheremetyevo - Brazzaville. During takeoff at the very end of the takeoff run, the left landing gear touched a snow parapet, which caused a strong throw of the aircraft to the left with a nose down. The plane hit the ground. 21 of the 68 people on board were killed.

1967

• On August 6, in France, while extinguishing a large forest fire, a Mi-6PZh helicopter crashed. The crew of nine people, led by commander Yu. A. Garnaev, died. For information about the disaster, see the article Garnaev, Yuri Alexandrovich.
• On November 16, during takeoff from Koltsovo Airport (Sverdlovsk), an Il-18 of Aeroflot airline crashed due to an engine failure. 130 people died (122 passengers and 8 crew members).

• On December 30, in Latvia, an An-24B aircraft crashed during landing approach from Riga to Liepaja (flight L-51). 40 out of 46 passengers and 3 out of 5 crew members were killed.

1968

• On March 27, Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin died in a plane crash while performing a training flight on a MiG-15UTI aircraft under the control of instructor pilot V. S. Seregin, near the village of Novoselovo, Kirzhachsky District, Vladimir Region.

• On April 22, the crew of the Il-18V aircraft performed a training flight near Domodedovo Airport. During the flight, the plane touched power lines and crashed. All five crew members were killed.

1969

• On June 22, in the sky over the Kaluga region, a military transport aircraft An-12 collided, en route from Kaunas to Ryazan, and a passenger Il-14. All passengers and crew members of both aircraft (there were 91 paratroopers and 5 crew members on board the An-12, 24 people on board the Il-14) died.

1970

• On April 1, an An-24 passenger plane crashed near Krasnoyarsk. All passengers (including the youth volleyball team) and crew members were killed.
• On December 31, an Aeroflot Il-18V crashed near Leningrad, operating flight 3012 (Leningrad-Yerevan), killing 6 people.

1972

• On May 16, at about 12:30, the An-24T aircraft of the Baltic Fleet of the USSR Navy, flying to fly over radio equipment, crashed in bad weather conditions, catching a tree. After a collision with a tree, the damaged aircraft flew about 200 meters and crashed on the building of a kindergarten in Svetlogorsk. 34 people died in the crash: all 8 on the plane, 23 children and 3 employees kindergarten.

• On May 18, on the approach waiting circle near Kharkov airport in the Russkaya Lozovaya area, an An-10 aircraft (wing separation from the fuselage) was destroyed in the air, performing a regular flight of Aeroflot airline Moscow (Vnukovo) - Kharkov. 122 people died (114 passengers and 8 crew members), including a delegation of pioneers from the GDR and the famous Soviet pop parodist Viktor Chistyakov. The cause of this catastrophe (and a number of catastrophes with An-10 aircraft preceding it) was the development of fatigue cracks in the airframe of the aircraft (a phenomenon not studied at that time). As a result of the investigation, the operation of the An-10 aircraft was terminated.

• On October 13, an Il-62 aircraft of Aeroflot airlines (flight Paris - Moscow) crashed during landing approach in the area of ​​​​the village. Ozeretskoye, Dmitrovsky district, Moscow region. There were 176 people on board, all died. The exact cause of the crash has not been established, the alleged cause is an incorrect altimeter setting.

1973

• On October 13, due to a power failure in the navigation systems at Domodedovo, an Aeroflot Tu-104B plane crashed on flight 964 from Tbilisi (tail number USSR-42486). The crew was disoriented. With landing gear extended at 400 m, they began a third right turn, during which the aircraft began to descend in a sharp left-handed spiral. The aircraft hit the ground with a bank of 75° 8 km from the airport. 114 passengers and 8 crew members died. Among the passengers was the commander of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the USSR air defense, artillery lieutenant general Fyodor Bondarenko. This disaster remained the largest in the entire history of the operation of Tu-104 family aircraft.

• On December 7, when landing at Domodedovo, a passenger plane Tu-104B crashed, en route from Georgia. The plane came in for landing with excess speed and deviation from the course. Because of this, the aircraft banked, touched the ground with its left wing, rolled over, split in half and caught fire. 13 of the 72 people on board the aircraft were killed.

• On October 10, at 08.11, during takeoff from the Tashauz airport (Turkmen SSR), a cargo plane Li-2 (USSR-71209, year of manufacture: 1951) of the Turkmen UGA Aeroflot crashed. There were 4 crew members and 1 passenger on board. The plane was flying Tashauz-Ashgabat with an intermediate stop in Darvaza. Having finally lost speed, the aircraft at 08:11, 3 km north of the airport on the runway beam, began to perform a steep dive and the right roll at an angle of 90 degrees crashed into the ground in the field. The fuselage was destroyed by 12-14 frames and partially burned down. The actual weather was: upper average cloudiness 5/0 points, wind 7 m/s, 90 degrees, visibility 10 km, t=+9°С, pressure 759 mm Hg. Art. Crew: PIC: Karnaukhov Gennady Alekseevich, co-pilot: Karmanov Alexander Evgenievich, flight engineer: Yazmuradov Begdzhan, trainee flight operator: Kuznetsov Alexander Egorovich.

1974

• On April 27, an Il-18V crashed near Leningrad, performing a charter flight Leningrad-Zaporozhye-Krasnodar. 109 people died - the largest plane crash in Leningrad.

1975

• On July 15, the Yak-40 of Aeroflot airlines is an aviation accident that occurred in the mountains near Batumi with a Yak-40 aircraft, which killed 40 people.

• On August 15, the Yak-40 of Aeroflot airlines is an aviation accident that occurred near Krasnovodsk with a Yak-40 aircraft, as a result of which 23 people died

1976

• On December 16, the Yak-40 of Aeroflot, during a training flight, fell into a tailspin and crashed in the Zaporozhye region of the Ukrainian SSR. All 5 crew members were killed. The cause of the crash was crew error.
• On December 17, an An-24 passenger plane (Aeroflot), when landing at the Kiev Zhuliany airport, collided with a concrete fence in difficult meteorological conditions, and then crashed into a railway embankment. 48 of the 55 people on board were killed.
• On December 17, an Aeroflot Yak-40 aircraft hit trees and fell into the forest immediately after taking off from Ust-Kut. 7 people died. The cause of the crash is crew error.
• On December 18, an Il-14 (Aeroflot) aircraft crashed into Mount Ostraya near Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk while landing. Of the 10 people on board, two passengers survived and were found three days later.
• On March 26, an Il-14 aircraft made in the USSR, manufactured in 1957, of the Burundai joint squadron of the Kazakh UGA Aeroflot crashed at 07.35 near Geok-Tepe, 53 km northeast of the city of Ashgabat (Turkmen SSR). At a distance of 30 km from the airport, the cloudiness decreased to 400-500 m. Telman, according to witnesses, was as follows: low cloudiness, which began from the foot of Mount Avcheken, towards Geok-Tepe, visibility was 9-10 km and lower partly cloudy. Similar information about the weather at 07:50 Moscow time was received from the crew of the An-2 aircraft No. 33118, which was searching for the Il-14 as a result of a loss of communication. A total of 6 people died (all crew members). PIC: Igor Yuryevich Gusak, co-pilot: Alexander Ivanovich Romanov, flight engineer-instructor: Gennady Leonidovich Muravsky, flight engineer: Vladimir Grigoryevich Fartushin, flight radio operator: Vladimir Andreevich Evdokimenko, flight mechanic-operator: Mikhail Mikhailovich Murletsov.

1977

• On December 9, an An-24RV crashed while taking off from the Tarko-Sale airfield. 17 people were killed, 13 passengers and 4 crew members. Crew error.
• On 13 January, a Tupolev Tu-104 crashed while landing at Alma-Ata Airport, with 96 people on board. According to the official version, the cause of the fall was a fire in one of the engines. The plane crashed three kilometers from the runway.
• On February 15, an Il-18 flying from Tashkent crashed while landing in Mineralnye Vody. 77 people died.
• On March 30, in conditions of poor visibility, a Yak-40 crashed while landing at the airport in the city of Zhdanov (Mariupol). 8 of the 27 people on board died. Including three girls - masters of sports of the USSR in diving.

1978

1979

• January 15 - An-24 crash in the vicinity of Minsk with an An-24B aircraft of the Aeroflot airline, as a result of which 13 people died.
• On March 17, a Tu-104B plane crashed near Vnukovo airport, flying Moscow-Odessa. 86 people died.

• On March 22, in Latvia, at Liepaja airport, during landing, due to improperly secured cargo, a Tu-134 (No. 65031) crashed, en route from Omsk through Gorky. 4 out of 5 crew members were killed.

• August 3 - Let L-410 crash in Rzhevka, which occurred in the Kovalevsky Forest near Rzhevka Airport in the Leningrad Region with an Aeroflot L-410M (L-410M) aircraft, which killed 10 people.
• On August 11, two Tu-134A aircraft collided in the air near Dneprodzerzhinsk. There were 178 people on both sides (including the Pakhtakor football team), all died. This is the largest mid-air collision in terms of the number of victims in the history of Soviet aviation. The cause of the collision was an error of the air traffic controller.

• On August 29, near the city of Kirsanov, a Tu-124 crashed, following the route Odessa-Kiev-Kazan. At an altitude of 9000 meters, the plane fell into a tailspin, and at an altitude of 3000 meters it began to collapse. 5 crew members and 58 passengers were killed. According to experts, the aircraft stalled into a tailspin due to accidental release of the flaps.

1980

• April 14: During takeoff of the An-24 No. 47732 from the Severny airport of Krasnoyarsk, during the takeoff, the slot-hinge of the right landing gear was destroyed. The crew decided to proceed to the destination airfield Yeniseysk for an emergency landing without landing gear on the snow. At the direction of the head of the civil aviation department of Krasnoyarsk, after running out of fuel from the right wing, an order was given to land at the departure aerodrome, on a pre-measured site (1000 meters according to the measurements of the aerodrome service before landing, 600 meters according to the BP inspection during the investigation of the accident ) between the runway and the taxiway. When the plane was on the pre-landing straight, Il-76 taxied to the preliminary start for take-off, which served as an additional obstacle for the landing of the An-24. After landing, the wheels of the right landing gear came off, while the landing gear itself did not work out and, having run 600 meters, the plane stuck its right landing gear into boxes of sand. The plane turned by inertia at 50 degrees, the wing broke and the plane caught fire. Of the 52 passengers and 4 crew members, 2 passengers died from burns within 10 days.
• On July 8, a Tu-154 crashed on the outskirts of Alma-Ata, carrying 166 people. The cause of the accident was named the so-called

From my FB friend, talented journalist Eva Merkacheva. The terrible events of 1972 that no one knows about ...

Childhood crushed by the sky

On May 16, 1972, in broad daylight, a plane crashed into a kindergarten in the city of Svetlogorsk. The teachers, who were having lunch at that moment, did not get up from the tables, the children did not return to their toys. 35 people died in that nightmare.

For many years, everyone was silent about the Svetlogorsk tragedy, including those who lost loved ones. Until now, even encyclopedias indicate the wrong number of deaths, and it is believed that the dead pilots were to blame for everything, in whose blood they allegedly found alcohol.

"MK" found eyewitnesses and victims of the tragedy, who spoke after more than forty years of silence.

Photo of the deceased kindergarten group. On the right - the teacher Valentina Shabashova-Metelitsa (died), on the left - the head teacher Galina Klyukhina (she was not at work that day). Photo from personal archive

Trajectory of death

... At the Svetlogorsk cemetery near the mass grave, where the victims of that terrible tragedy, bustle two women.

I have a brother here, says one. - Burnt alive. Are you from Moscow? Tell me why until now our tragedy is either not written at all, or they write nonsense? I once read that, they say, after the disaster there was a mass suicide in the city. That parents committed suicide, unable to bear the pain of loss. I also read that many fell asleep after that. Not true! In fact, many decided to give birth again and called the newborns the names of the dead children.

Women and the priest of the local temple give us "addresses, passwords, appearances." For some reason, they are sure: now all the victims and eyewitnesses will tell how it really happened.

So, on May 16 it was clear and calm in Svetlogorsk. At about noon, an An-24 aircraft of the 263rd Air Transport Regiment of the USSR Baltic Fleet appeared on the horizon. He went around the stadium, almost hitting the Ferris wheel in the park, and with his left plane cut down the top of a tall birch. One of the first to see him was a few vacationers who found themselves that day in the park, and schoolchildren who had a physical education lesson at the city stadium.

We returned to our school along a forest path that went past a kindergarten, - recalls a former student of one of the schools, Nikolai Alekseev. - Seeing the plane falling on our heads, we were dumbfounded with horror, someone tried to escape. "Stop!" our teacher shouted to us. Rising as if rooted to the spot, we froze in place. We stood and watched as this uncontrollable colossus, dousing us with the heat of its turbines and losing altitude, swept over our heads.

The first random victims that day were high school students Tanya Yezhova and Natasha Tsygankova. The girls were approaching the kindergarten, when suddenly ...

There were a few meters left before the kindergarten, as we were doused with burning vapors of aviation fuel, ”recalls Tatyana Yezhova, whom we met at the scene of the tragedy. - We did not even have time to understand anything, as in an instant our hair, clothes, shoes broke out on us. We were in severe shock from fright and unbearable pain. Not a soul around, and we are alone in the middle of the street, engulfed in flames ...

And the plane continued to rush to the kindergarten, hidden in massive spruces. The kindergarten was considered departmental (from the Svetlogorsk sanatorium), and, as usual, it had all the best: from the conditions for the stay of children to the salary of the staff. The official position of the parents fully justified the status of this institution: the head of the police, the head of the traffic police, the first secretary of the Komsomol city committee, an employee of the Svetlogorsk court, the head physician ...

Returning from a walk, the children sat down in their places in anticipation of dinner. The dining room was filled with the aroma of hot soup. The cook Tamara Yankovskaya probably, as usual, slowly walked between the tables, watching that the pupils ate neatly, slowly, and correctly held the spoons.

Looking out the window, the teacher Valentina Shabashova-Metelitsa saw her son Andrey. On that day, the boy was walking with his grandmother Nina around the city. Near the kindergarten, Nina Sergeevna met a neighbor. We stopped to chat. "Grandma, I'm running to my mother for a minute? .." - Andrey asked. Valentina ran out to meet him. Mother and son just hugged...

In the next moment, the building of the kindergarten was shaken by a monstrous blow. Having lost both planes and the landing gear during the fall, the halved fuselage rammed the second floor at high speed, burying everyone under its debris. Aviation fuel ignited by impact new force, in a matter of seconds, swallowed up all living things in its flame.

Next to the flaming ruins of the kindergarten, the cockpit of an airplane was lying on the road. In it, clinging to the steering wheel, sat a dead pilot. The co-pilot lay on the road. The wind either knocked the flames off him, then fanned them with renewed vigor.

No one even poured a bucket of water on him, ”recalls an old woman who lived next door. It was impossible to get close to him.

Location map aviation accident compiled by eyewitness Valera Rogov.

Identification error

It seemed that no one could survive in this hell. And yet, not everyone died. terrible death then Anna Nezvanova, the nursery nanny of the kindergarten, escaped, wiping the windows from the side of the street with a rag. The blast wave threw her a few meters to the side. Hardly coming to her senses, Anna Nikitichna rushed to the burning ruins. There, under the ruins of the kindergarten, was her son Vanya. A woman mad with grief, trying to get a child, almost died in the fire herself ...

That day, for various reasons, three pupils did not go to kindergarten. Irina Golushko had the flu shortly before the tragedy. On May 16, her mother was going to take her to kindergarten, but changed her mind.

And I ended up in the hospital with a kidney disease, - recalls Oleg Saushkin, who was then six years old. - I remember that at some point the whole hospital began to fuss. Everyone began to run, cars drove somewhere, confusion and signs of some distant horror reigned in the eyes of the hospital staff. And already my mother, with tears in her eyes, a little later, told about what happened in my kindergarten ...

My tonsils were removed the day before, my mother and I were on sick leave, ”says Olga Korobova. - Sitting at home was an unbearable torment for me. On that day, my mother gave up: "Okay, let's get ready for kindergarten." We quickly got dressed and just opened the door, when there was a strong explosion. It rumbled so hard that the ground shook. By the way, my mother worked in that garden as a nanny. It turns out that God saved her from a terrible death.

He also saved Valery Rogov, a graduate of this kindergarten. And not just saved, but warned of the tragedy.

In 1972, I was already in the first grade, says Valera. - I had a dream last night. I clearly see the faces of my children from the kindergarten, engulfed in flames. The fire is some kind of unusual - a real torch. The next morning I woke up in a cold sweat. I told my mother what I saw. We did not attach any importance to this then, but I went to school with a severe headache. Somewhere around noon, I went to the kindergarten - and ... In general, I was one of the first at the scene of the tragedy. People rushed around, not knowing what to do, people who came running to help. Somewhere in the bushes, turning the soul inside out, a burnt dog howled, howled terribly...

It was lunchtime when all this happened, - recalls a former employee of the Svetlogorsk police department (in 1972 - an inspector of the OBKhSS, police lieutenant) Leonid Baldykov. - At that very moment I was at home having lunch. My house was only a hundred meters from the kindergarten. What we saw when we got there shocked us, adults, strong men. A wall of raging fire and an unbearable fumes from burning fuel that spread over the asphalt from a broken tank ...

Almost simultaneously, police squads, firefighters, military personnel of neighboring military units and sailors of the Baltic Fleet arrived at the crash site. In a matter of minutes, a triple cordon was set up. Armed soldiers, tightly clasped by the hands, barely restrained the unfortunate mothers, who rushed to where their children died in a terrible fire. Somehow managed to push them to a safe distance.

My uncle, midshipman Valentin Konstantinovich, was in the first row of the cordon,” recalls Oleg Saushkin. - According to him, the officers, midshipmen and sailors, who were standing near the destroyed kindergarten, got the most. Many, including himself, had their vests torn to shreds, their faces were covered in abrasions from women who were trying to break through the line, distraught with grief ...

Along the road, on the soot-blackened lawn, the military laid out white sheets. Immediately, rescuers began to lay the remains of children extracted from under the ruins on them. Many, unable to stand it, closed their eyes and turned away. Someone fainted.

For the rest of my life, I remembered that terrible howl that shook the air, recalls Valery Rogov. - People were crying, screaming, sobbing, someone was hysterical...

In order for the special transport to be able to park and pick up the remains of the dead, rescuers and firefighters had to pull a pile of bricks and mangled fragments of the aircraft in different directions from a narrow street. The asphalt was covered with numerous furrows, more like bleeding wounds. Immediately soldiers appeared with canvas stretchers. Two strong fighters carried the charred body of the pilot next to Valera Rogov. Then - another, third. Someone grabbed Valera's hand. The boy turned around and saw tearful women who, pointing at the smoking ruins, shouted to him: “Why are they there, and you are here ?! You were supposed to be with them! Your mother was told that you were with them!..”

State of emergency

A state of emergency was introduced in the resort Svetlogorsk for 24 hours. Residents were forbidden not only to leave the city, but even to leave their homes. The electricity and telephones were turned off. The city froze, people sat in dark apartments, as if in shelters during the war. In the evening, police squads and combatants were on duty on the coast: there was a fear that one of the relatives of the dead would decide to drown themselves. Work to clear the rubble and search for the bodies of the dead continued until late at night. The remains of the ruins, as it turns out later, were taken to a landfill on the outskirts of the city. For a long time, burnt children's books and toys, parts and items of military ammunition will be found in its vicinity ...

As soon as the last loaded car left the city, the place where the day before there was a kindergarten was leveled, overlaid with sod on scorched earth. In order to hide the traces of the tragedy from prying eyes, it was decided to break a large flower bed in that place.

By morning, the garden seemed to have never existed - a flower bed blossomed in its place! - Andrey Dmitriev recalls. - Many parents did not believe their eyes then. The scorched earth was cut off, the turf was laid, the paths strewn with broken red brick. Broken and burnt trees were cut down. And only a sharp smell of kerosene. The smell lingered for another two weeks...

The consequences of the Svetlogorsk tragedy were horrendous: 24 (and not 23, as it appears in official sources) pupil, one kindergarten teacher and 8 crew members were burned alive. Where did another child come from? It turned out that one of the girls was the captain's daughter. long-distance navigation. A sad telephone message was sent to him on the ship. In response, he asked not to bury his daughter in mass grave and wait for him. Because the girl was not taken into account ...

Garden workers Tamara Yankovskaya, Antonina Romanenko, and her friend Yulia Vorona, who accidentally came to visit that day, were taken to a military hospital with severe burns. In addition to their relatives, KGB officers visited them in the hospital every day, ready for any help in exchange for silence. Unfortunately, Romanenko died quickly, without regaining consciousness, Yankovskaya died six months later, and Vorona survived.

The dead children and teachers were buried in a mass grave in the cemetery, not far from railway station Svetlogorsk-1. On the day of the funeral, traffic was limited on the roads connecting the regional center with Svetlogorsk. At the same time, diesel trains carrying passengers from Kaliningrad to the resort town were cancelled. Official version- urgent repair of access roads, unofficial - minimization of publicity of all the circumstances of the crash. Despite the temporary restrictions associated with mourning events, according to eyewitnesses, more than seven thousand people gathered at the cemetery on the day of the funeral.

At the funeral, KGB officers forbade taking pictures and exposed the films of those who did it. But a few pictures were still taken by the relatives of the victims. Photo from personal archive

Quiet investigation

No criminal case was opened on the fact of the plane crash in Svetlogorsk. They limited themselves only to the order of the Minister of Defense, in accordance with which about 40 military officials were removed from their posts.

And even then the main version appeared: the pilots were to blame, in whose blood alcohol was allegedly found. For this reason, relatives of the dead children and kindergarten staff forbade burying the pilots at the Svetlogorsk cemetery next to "their victims." For the same reason in the temple-chapel in general list of those who died in the plane crash, there was no place for the eight names of the crew members.

The priest of the local temple keeps some archival documents relating to the tragedy. But the main thing is that dispatchers, flight mechanics, pilots of that same detachment came here. Many confessed... What did they say? The secret of confession does not allow him to tell. But he is sure: the crew has nothing to do with it.

There were other versions, sometimes absurd. Someone argued that the pilots were poorly prepared for the mission. They did not forget about the nudist girls sunbathing on the beach (and this was in 1972, but at a temperature of plus 6 degrees!), Which the pilots allegedly tried to make out during the next descent over the sea. They wrote that the crew allegedly took off without permission. In fact, the reason was in the altimeter ...

The Scandinavian neighbors closest to us have repeatedly attempted to violate air borders, - says one of the employees of the 263rd separate transport aviation regiment (the one that belonged to the crashed plane). - In some cases, they succeeded. And these were by no means military aircraft. Sports class, single-engine, low-flying, driven by amateur pilots. To find out how foreign pilots crossed the border without hindrance, the Soviet command decided to conduct test flights in the area of ​​​​responsibility of Soviet radar stations of the coastal tracking system by the naval aviation of the Baltic Fleet. And on that fateful day, the An-24 (tail number 05) went on a mission with the crew of Captain Vilor Gutnik. On the eve of the flight, on command from above, the altimeter from the Il-14 was rearranged on the An-24. The performance of the instrument has not been properly verified. No one then could have imagined how the altimeter would behave on a new aircraft.

According to legend, the crew of Captain Gutnik was supposed to play the role of a conditional target, that is, an intruder aircraft. In the field of view of the locator, the target aircraft had to climb, move away, then drop sharply in order to get out of the control of the "all-seeing eye". When descending, turn right and left to outwit the station operator. Gutnik conscientiously did what was required. The operator was informed every minute of the flight altitude, and he made notches on the tablet, informing the crew of board 05 whether the target was visible or not. At the lowest altitudes, the locator did not see the target: the plane went out of its field of vision. That is why it was not possible to notice the danger. The crew kept in touch with the shore until the last second, but there was already a thick fog over the sea.

The first collision with an obstacle occurred at the 14th minute 48th second of the flight. Flight recorders recorded altimeter readings: 150 meters above sea level. In fact, from the foot of the steep bank to the top of the birch - no more than 85 meters.

In the declassified case, the scheme clearly traces the entire path of the fall of the aircraft and the destruction of its structure. But eyewitnesses of the events drew their own map. They handed it over to us for publication in MK. They say that maybe this will help heal their wound a little ... How? The fact that the inhabitants of a vast country will finally see for themselves how everything really happened.