A strange, almost mystical coincidence of many accidents led to the disaster that occurred more than 11 years ago in the night sky over Lake Constance. The events that followed the tragedy were no less dramatic.
On the night of July 1-2, 2002, a Russian Tu-154 and a Boeing 757 collided in the sky over the German town of Uberlingen, which stands on the northern shore of Lake Constance. transport company DHL. 71 people died, including 52 children flying from Bashkiria on vacation to Spain, and the adults accompanying them.
This tragedy was preceded by a series of unexpected events and circumstances. So, due to an error by the employees of the holiday organizing company, the plane on which children from Bashkiria were supposed to fly to Barcelona went there without them. The company corrected its mistake two days later by organizing a special charter flight to send the children.
The collision took place in airspace controlled by the Swiss company Skyguide in Zurich, which initially refused to admit responsibility for the crash. Only the leaders of Germany and Switzerland expressed official condolences to the relatives of the victims immediately after the disaster. Skyguide management followed suit only two years later.
What led to the collision
The investigation into the causes of the disaster revealed a number of events that resulted from the negligence of Skyguide employees. The direct culprit of the incident was air traffic controller Peter Nielsen, who controlled the airspace in which the planes collided.
On that fateful night, one of the mission control center radars was not working, and instead of three people on duty, only Nielsen was on the night shift. True, at first there was a second dispatcher, but he, with Nielsen’s consent, invited his girlfriend to the center and took her “on a tour” of the premises. This frivolous behavior of the dispatchers was explained by the fact that the intensity of aircraft traffic during these hours is, as a rule, very low.
Moreover, the day before the central external telephone line was temporarily turned off, only the backup line was working. But she was also inaccessible - she was used by the aforementioned girlfriend of the dispatcher, who animatedly shared her impressions of visiting the center with her friends.
That is why dispatchers from the German center, who saw on their radars the likelihood of dangerous situation, were unable to warn their colleagues in Zurich about it.
To top it all off, at that moment an “unscheduled” plane appeared in Skyguide airspace, landing at Friedrichshafen Airport, and this machine had to be dealt with immediately.
And superimposed on all this main mistake Peter Nielsen - his decision made at a critical moment. Busy escorting the “extra” plane, he did not hear the messages from the Boeing pilots about the descent they had begun. And he gave the command to the Russian plane to descend.
The collision warning systems on both aircraft operated normally. In the situation that arose, the Russian co-pilot suggested following the system’s instructions and gaining altitude. However, the current rules required that in case of such discrepancies, one must obey the instructions of the ground control service.
As a result, the airliners found themselves on intersecting courses, and the tail of the Boeing crashed into the middle of the Tu-154 fuselage. Both planes crashed to the ground.
Guilty plea
The media primarily laid the blame for the incident on Peter Nielsen. After the disaster, he experienced severe nervous shock, quit his job, and throughout his subsequent life suffered mental trauma.
After some time, Nielsen made a written statement, where he expressed regret that on that fateful night he became the culprit of the tragedy and asked for forgiveness from the relatives and friends of the victims. Unfortunately, Skyguide management did not make this statement public. As a result, it was published only in the German magazine Focus, but the Russians knew nothing about it. And this became another prerequisite for future events.
Nielsen undoubtedly felt guilty for the death of 71 people, and living with this feeling was unbearable for him. One can imagine the mental anguish and psychological stress that he constantly experienced. And a year and a half after that tragedy, there was a knock on the door of his house unknown man obviously not of European appearance...
Family tragedy
On the crashed Tu-154 were the family of 46-year-old Vitaly Kaloev from North Ossetia. A highly qualified architect, in 1999 he signed a contract with a Spanish architectural and construction company and left for Barcelona. His wife Svetlana and two children remained at home, and now he had to meet his wife and children at Barcelona airport to spend a holiday together in Spain.
And again a fatal accident. When Svetlana, her ten-year-old son and four-year-old daughter arrived in Moscow, it turned out that there were no more tickets for the flight they had planned to Barcelona. But Svetlana was offered to fly there on a Bashkir Airlines plane along with her children who were heading on vacation. Of course, she happily agreed...
Upon learning of the disaster, Vitaly immediately flew to Zurich and then to Uberlingen. The remains of his daughter were found three kilometers from the site of the plane collision. The son's mutilated body lay on the asphalt not far from the bus stop.
The incident caused Vitaly deep depression. He returned to his homeland, where he spent more than a year mainly near the graves of his relatives. He was seen there even at night.
In November 2003, Skyguide management offered Vitaly Kaloyev compensation in the amount of 60,000 Swiss francs for his wife and 50,000 for each child (which is about the same in US dollars).
Attempts to achieve repentance
Kaloyev considered the offer of compensation to be mocking, and this infuriated him. He began to seek a meeting with Alan Rosser, the head of Skyguide, and Peter Nielsen, he wanted to convince them to formally - in front of television cameras - ask for forgiveness from the relatives of the victims of the disaster and admit their responsibility for the deaths of the children. But Vitaly was denied a meeting. True, he still managed to meet with Rosser, but he was unable to find the right words, which would at least somehow console a person who has lost his entire family.
Kaloev repeatedly asked the management of Skyguide to arrange a meeting for him with Nielsen. Vitaly said that he wanted to come face to face with the man who caused the death of his wife and children. But above all, he wanted to hear from Nielsen an apology, an expression of condolences and a public admission of his guilt. But all of Vitaly’s requests were rejected.
And then he decided to go to Uberlingen as a private citizen. This was in February 2004, a year and a half after the disaster.
Lynching
Kaloyev found Nielsen's address in the telephone directory. Since he did not speak German, he first called friends in Germany to ask someone to become his translator. Unfortunately, they were very busy and could not come to Uberlingen. Vitaly also had a pastor friend in Zurich who could also help him, but he was on vacation. More coincidences...
Vitaly decided to act alone. A woman who lived nearby helped find Nielsen's house. Vitaly went to the door of the house and knocked. A man appeared on the threshold with whom Kaloev finally managed to meet face to face. Vitaly motioned for the owner to let him into the house. But he left the house and closed the door behind him. Then Kaloev said that he was from Russia. He knew how to say it in German. Then he took out a photo of his dead children and wife from his pocket to show them to Nielsen. But he pushed Vitaly’s hand away and motioned for him to leave.
And then something happened in Vitaly’s soul - pain, despair, a sense of injustice, which he had somehow managed to restrain until now, escaped out of control. He handed Nielsen the photographs again and said in Spanish:
- Look, look!
This time Nielsen simply hit him on the arm and the pictures fell to the ground.
Vitaly does not remember at all what happened next. According to the investigation reports, Kaloev stabbed Nilsen many times with a knife, which he always had with him. However, the killer could not remember how he left the crime scene and where he went.
The wife of 36-year-old Nielsen was in the house with their children when she suddenly heard a scream. Running outside, she saw her husband lying on the threshold in a pool of blood and a man walking away. Peter Nielsen died in front of his family before the doctors arrived.
Consequences of revenge
It turned out to be easy to find Kaloyev - he was staying at a nearby hotel. He was detained and placed in a psychiatric clinic, since the judge leading the case came to the conclusion that the murder was committed in a state of passion. After a series of legal procedures, Kaloyev was sentenced to eight years in prison. However, in 2007, the Swiss appeal court reduced the prison term, Vitaly was released and returned to his homeland.
At the site of the tragedy, a monument was unveiled, a torn necklace, the pearls of which scattered along the trajectory of the wreckage of two planes
Public opinion in Russia, and especially in North Ossetia, was on Kaloyev’s side from the very beginning. Most people believed that by his action he had finally restored justice. Vitaly himself, while still in prison, said that this did not make him feel any better - after all, neither his children nor his wife would ever be resurrected. And he still claimed that he did not remember how he killed Nilsen.
Upon returning to his homeland, Vitaly Kaloev was appointed to the post of Deputy Minister of Construction and Architecture of North Ossetia.
And a Swiss court subsequently found four Skyguide employees guilty of unintentionally causing the death of many people. Three of them were given symbolic terms of imprisonment, one paid a fine.
Seven years ago, on the night of July 1-2, 2002, a Bashkir Airlines Tu-154 passenger plane with children on board collided in the air with an American Boeing 757.
The plane crash killed two DHL Boeing pilots on a cargo flight from Bergamo to Brussels and 69 people on board the Russian plane. The accident happened in Germany, and has since been called the “disaster over Lake Constance.”
The monument to the victims, erected later in the suburbs of Überlingen, was called “The Broken String of Pearls.”
The Free Press correspondent managed to find a woman in Ufa who was supposed to fly on that tragic flight with her daughter, but at the last moment she was informed that the trips had ended. Her name is Liliya Sabitova, she is a journalist by profession.
"SP":— Lilia, tell me how it happened that you didn’t get on that ill-fated flight?
— A month and a half before the plane crash, I prepared a special edition of the newspaper commissioned by the same travel agency that sent Ufa children to Barcelona. The special issue was dedicated summer vacation. The selection of materials also included an article about a children’s camp in Spain, to which the children of Bashkiria later went. As a fee, the director of the travel agency promised me and my six-year-old daughter a trip to that same camp.
"SP":- And, fortunately, he did not fulfill his promise...
“We were already completely prepared for the trip, we even packed our suitcases. But unexpectedly, a few days before departure, the director suddenly told me: sorry, there are no more vouchers, the plane is full. “How is this? — I was dumbfounded. “We agreed!..” “You think everything is so easy?!” - the director seethed. “Every minute they call me from above - and everyone wants their child to fly on this plane!”
"SP":-Are you very offended by him?
- Yes, I was seriously offended then. She left, slamming the door. But my resentment passed on the day of the disaster, giving way to shock: I could have been on that plane! With a child!.. Poor, poor parents who have lost their children...
"SP":— Has something changed dramatically in your life since then?
“I can’t say that life has changed radically.”
"SP":- Why did the Lord leave you on earth?
- Apparently, I still have to find out about this...
"SP":— Did you know any of the people on that flight?
— I bow my head to Katya Pospelova’s mother — Katya was an angel whom everyone loved. We met in Adler - then she was a counselor, adored by children and their parents, later - the boss children's camp. My interview with Katya was her last.
I also knew the flight attendant Gulnara Bilyalova; she graduated from our university philological department a little earlier than me. Gulya was a rare, simply amazing beauty. Only always a little sad - still in early childhood she was left without a mother. “The sky has become your dear to infinity,” is carved on the monument with her photograph.
"SP":— Today you will probably go with flowers to the memorial to those killed in the plane crash?
— A memorial to the victims was created at the southern cemetery of Ufa. Every year on the day of the tragedy, we come here with our daughter. I know that there is no person who would not cry while being here. At the entrance to the memorial there is a stele with golden airplanes spiraling into the sky. Airplanes-souls - those who flew away from us forever. On one of the memorial monuments the words are engraved:
Our coming and leaving are mysterious, their goals
All the sages of the earth failed to comprehend,
Where is the beginning of this circle, where is the end?
Where did we come from, where will we go from here...
How it was
On board the Russian airliner, flying from Moscow to Barcelona, there were 12 crew members, 52 children (50 of them were from Ufa, two more from other cities of Bashkiria) and five adult passengers. The UNESCO Committee of Bashkiria organized a trip to Spain for the best, especially gifted children, winners of various Olympiads - as a reward for successful studies. Also flying in the Tu-154 were the children of the heads of the presidential administration of the republic, the cabinet of ministers, and heads of a number of large educational institutions and organizations.
Since the flight was considered elite, the crew of the plane was made up of the best pilots, and before takeoff the car (Tu-154, produced in 1995) underwent a special technical inspection. Both planes that crashed were equipped with mid-air collision avoidance equipment.
On the night of July 1–2, eyewitnesses saw huge fireballs. At first, local residents decided that they had witnessed a UFO invasion. Moments later it became clear that something terrible had happened...
What was left of the collision between the two planes crashed just a few meters from residential buildings.
That night, Peter Nielsen, a dispatcher for the Swiss company Skyguide, who controlled air traffic control in the area from Zurich, was left on duty alone - his partner had gone out to dinner. Because Nielsen had to monitor two terminals at the same time, he noticed the warning about the dangerous approach of two airliners too late.
The dispatcher gave the Russian crew the command to descend. However, after the start of the descent on board the Tu-154, the automatic system warning of dangerous approaches by giving the crew the command to gain altitude. On the Boeing, the same system commanded: descend! The fateful circumstance was that the dispatcher's flight safety monitoring system was turned off that night - to carry out regular maintenance.
Also, neither the main nor the auxiliary telephones worked, so colleagues at a nearby airport who saw the dangerous approach of the planes were unable to warn Nielsen about it. Monitoring two different routes simultaneously, the controller repeated his instructions for the Tu-154...
The pilots of the two airliners noticed each other too late, unable to avoid the strike. The collision occurred at an altitude of 11 thousand meters above sea level. Everyone died.
List of passengers flying on the Tu-154:
1. Asylguzhin Ildar Irshatovich - born in 1988.
2. Asylova Lena Takhirovna - 1992
3. Akhmetov Arsen Fatykhovich - 1987
4. Basyrova Elena Irikovna - 1977
5. Biglov Bulat Irikovich - 1987
6. Valeev Vener Yunerovich - 1987
7. Voitko Alexandra Dmitrievna - 1989
8. Gazizova Albina Maratovna - 1987
9. Gimaeva Leysyan Ildarovna - 1987
10. Grigorieva Zhanna Alexandrovna - 1987
11. Dinislamov Denis Rafaelovich - 1988
12. Degtyarev Kirill Alexandrovich - 1987
13. Efremov Igor Anatolyevich - 1987
14. Zhiyanbaeva Gulnaz Rafilovna - 1990
15. Kaloeva Diana Vitalievna - 1998
16. Kaloev Konstantin Vitalievich - 1991
17. Kaloeva Svetlana Pushkinovna - 1958
18. Kozlova Daria Alexandrovna - 1986
19. Oksana Kostenko – travel agency manager
20. Litvinov Stanislav Sergeevich - 1992
21. Mambetova Leysyan Islametdinovna - 1987
22. Masagutov Arsen Radikovich - 1986
23. Melnichuk Mikhail Vasilievich - 1986
24. Minchenkova Maria Grigorievna - 1987
25. Murtazin Airat Maratovich - 1968
26. Murtazin Ildar Airatovich - 1994
27. Musagitova Elina Ildarovna - 1990
28. Nelyubina Elena Evgenievna - 1987
29. Nizametdinova Gulnaz Ramzilevna - 1988
30. Novikova Valeria Aleksandrovna - 1987
31. Pospelova Ekaterina Vladimirovna - 1973
32. Pushkareva Evgenia Alexandrovna - 1990
33. Savchuk Veronica Vladimirovna - 1987
34. Savchuk Vladislav Vladimirovich - 1989
35. Savchuk Irina Anatolyevna - 1964
36. Soloviev Sergey Vladimirovich - 1990
37. Subkhankulov Marat Mavletovich - 1986
38. Sultanbekova Liana Maratovna - 1988
39. Sultanov Marcel Muratovich - 1989
40. Yulia Rimovna Sufiyanova - 1988
41. Tukaeva S. -
42. Urazlin Ruslan Olegovich - 1987
43. Urazlina Karina Olegovna - 1986
44. Fedotova Zoya Sergeevna - 1988
45. Fedotova Sofya Radikovna - 1987
46. Khammatov Artur Zulfatovich - 1991
47. Khannanova Alina Rimovna - 1990
48. Khasanova G. -
49. Khismatullina Linara Batyrovna - 1987
50. Shagimukhametov Dinar Rayanovich - 1987
51. Shisluyskaya A. -
52. Shisluyskaya V. -
53. Shisluyskaya L. -
54. Shisluyskaya Yu. -
55. Shmelkov Maxim Vladimirovich - 1987
56. Yuldashbaeva Irina Yulaevna - 1988
57. Yusupov Ruslan - 1982
Tu-154 crew
Crew commander:
1. Gross A.M., born March 21, 1950
Co-pilots:
2. Grigoriev O.P., born 03/31/62
3. Itkulov M.A., born 09/29/61
Navigator:
4. Kharlov S.G., born 08/28/51
Flight manager:
5. Gusev A.M.
Flight engineer:
6. Valeev O.I., born 01/21/64
Techniques:
7. Rakhmatullin Sh. M., born 11/29/50
8. Penzin Yu.L., born 06/15/58
Flight attendants:
9. Bagina O.A., born 02/03/57
10. Bilyalova G. A., born 04/07/67
11. Kuleshova T.N., born 12/21/66
12. Yakshidavletov A.Ya., born on July 6, 1971.
Revenge
A year and a half later, the head of the family that died over Lake Constance, Vitaly Kaloev took brutal revenge on dispatcher Peter Nielsen. Vitaly flew in the ill-fated Tu-154 wife Svetlana with two children: Kostya's 10 year old son And 4 year old daughter Diana. Immediately after the tragedy, Vitaly tried to get an answer: would anyone bear responsibility for the terrible catastrophe. When I realized that it was not, I decided to do justice myself. On February 25, 2004, all the world's news agencies reported: “an unknown man in a black coat and black trousers stabbed to death Dane Peter Nielsen, an air traffic controller for the Swiss company Skyguide. The murder took place in Peter’s own apartment, near Zurich, in the presence of his wife and three children...”
On October 26, 2005, Vitaly Kaloev was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. Two years later, a Swiss court released him for good behavior, and in November Vitaly returned to Russia. In January 2008 Chairman of the Government of North Ossetia Nikolai Khlyntsov appointed Vitaly Kaloyev Deputy Minister of Construction and Architecture of the republic. But already in August, a man left without a family, as part of a volunteer squad, went to fight in South Ossetia.
More than 13 years have passed since that memorable date when two airliners collided in the skies over Germany - the Russian passenger TU-154M and the Belgian cargo Boeing 757. The victims of this terrible disaster were 71 people, most of whom were children.
Events preceding the flight
On that fateful night from July 1 to July 2, 2002, when the disaster occurred over Lake Constance, on board the Russian passenger plane The TU-154, owned by the Bashkir Airlines company, carried 67 passengers, including 52 children and 12 crew members. The main part were talented schoolchildren from Bashkiria who were flying to Spain on vacation. The vouchers were provided by the Committee for UNESCO Affairs of the republic as an incentive for high performance in studies. And indeed, all the children in this group were a perfect match: artists, poets, athletes.
As it turned out later, the Ufa schoolchildren should not have been in the sky at all on that ill-fated night. Simply by mistake of the adults accompanying them, who brought a group of Bashkir children to Sheremetyevo airport, instead of taking them to Domodedovo, they missed their plane flying to Barcelona the day before.
A series of accidents
Almost all children going on holiday abroad came from families of high-ranking parents. For example, 15-year-old Leysan Gimaeva was the daughter of the head of the presidential administration of the Bashkir Republic. If these were children from ordinary families, then they would simply return home, albeit upset, but alive, and it would not have happened over Lake Constance.
But the influential parents of the schoolchildren decided to send one of the aircraft belonging to Bashkir Airlines to pick them up in Moscow, which was then supposed to take them to Spain on charter flight No. 2937. The crew of the plane was headed by Alexander Gross, who had already flown to Barcelona several times before and knew the route well.
And here’s another accident - after the children boarded the plane, it turned out that there were still a few empty seats left. It was immediately decided to sell these extra tickets. There were only seven of them. Four of them went to the Shislovsky family from Belarus, who also missed their plane, and three to Svetlana Kaloeva from North Ossetia, who was flying with two children (eldest son Kostya and 4-year-old Diana) to her husband Vitaly, who was working in Spain under a contract. After the disaster occurred over Lake Constance, even the names of these random passengers were not immediately known.
Before the disaster
On that July night, both aircraft were in the skies over Germany, but despite this, air traffic control for that period was transferred to the Swiss company Skyguide, located in Zurich. In this center, as usual at night, only three people remained working: two dispatchers and an assistant. However, almost just before the collision, one of those on duty went on a break, and only Peter Nielsen remained at the control panel, who was forced to monitor two terminals at the same time. When the dispatcher noticed that two planes, located at the same flight level of 36 thousand feet, began to approach each other, there were only a few seconds left before the disaster. A collision over Lake Constance was almost inevitable.
Command mismatch
The courses of aircraft flying towards each other would inevitably intersect. The dispatcher tried to correct the situation and gave the command to the crew of the Russian airliner to descend. It must be said that by this time the TU-154 pilots had already noticed another ship approaching them from the left side. They were ready to perform a maneuver that would allow the planes to disperse safely.
Immediately after the dispatcher’s command, the automatic proximity warning system (TCAS) came to life in the cockpit of the Russian pilots, informing them that it was urgently necessary to gain altitude. And at the same time, on board the Boeing, the same instruction was received from an identical system, but only to descend. The co-pilot of the TU-154 aircraft drew the attention of the remaining crew members to the discrepancy between the dispatcher and TCAS commands, but he was told that they would follow the order received from the ground. That is why no one confirmed the order received from the dispatcher, although the ship began to descend. Just a few seconds later, the command from the ground was repeated. This time it was immediately confirmed.
Fatal mistake
As the investigation would later show, the collision over Lake Constance occurred due to an untimely command issued by Skyguide dispatcher Peter Nielsen. By mistake, he gave the crew of the Russian plane incorrect information about another airliner, which was supposedly located to their right.
Subsequently, decryption of the data showed that the pilots were misled by such a message and, apparently, decided that there was another aircraft flying nearby, which the TCAS system for some reason did not detect. It remains unclear why none of the pilots informed the duty controller about this discrepancy in the commands.
At the same time as the Russian plane, the Boeing 757 was also descending, the crew of which was following TCAS instructions. They immediately reported this maneuver to the ground, but the controller Peter Nielsen did not hear it, since another ship came into contact on a different frequency.
In the last moments before the disaster, both crews tried as best they could to prevent a dangerous approach by deflecting the helms all the way, but, as you know, all efforts were in vain. The Tu-154M plane collided with the Boeing 757 almost at a right angle. The plane, owned by the transport company DHL, dealt a powerful blow to the fuselage of the Russian airliner with its vertical stabilizer, causing it to fall apart in the air. Its debris fell in the vicinity of the German town of Uberlingen, near Lake Constance (Baden-Württemberg). The Boeing, in turn, lost its stabilizer and lost control and crashed. The terrible crash over Lake Constance claimed the lives of the crew members of both aircraft and all the passengers flying on the Tu-154.
Investigation of what happened
Based on the results of the plane crash, an investigation was carried out, which was carried out by a specially created commission under the German Federal Office (BFU). Her findings were published two years later. The commission's report listed two reasons why the collision occurred:
- The air traffic controller was unable to provide adequate separation between the two aircraft in time. The descent instructions were transmitted to the pilots of the Tu-154 crew late.
- The Russian aircraft's crew continued to descend despite TCAS recommendations to gain altitude.
Expert conclusions
The report also noted numerous errors made by the management of the center in Zurich and, for example, the owners of the Swiss company Skyguide for many years allowed air traffic controllers to work in such a way that only one person could control air traffic, while his partner at that time rested. (2002) made it clear that this number of personnel was clearly insufficient. In addition, the equipment that was supposed to tell the dispatcher about the possible approach of airliners was turned off that night due to maintenance.
As for the phones, they didn't work either. It was because of this that Peter Nielsen was unable to get through to the airport located in Friedrichshafen (a small town located north of Lake Constance) at the right time in order to transfer to the local dispatchers control of the delayed plane arriving, which the Swiss was monitoring at the second terminal . In addition, due to the lack of telephone communication, those on duty in Karlsruhe, who had noticed the dangerous approach in the air much earlier, were not able to warn Nielsen about the impending disaster.
Also, the commission that investigated the collision over Lake Constance noted that ICAO documents regulating the use of TCAS and held by the crew of the Tu-154 aircraft were partly contradictory and incomplete. The fact is that, on the one hand, the instructions for the system contained a strict prohibition on performing maneuvers that do not comply with TCAS prompts, and on the other hand, it was considered auxiliary, thus creating the impression that the dispatcher’s commands were a priority. From this we can draw the only correct conclusion: if not for a series of absurd accidents and fatal mistakes, the plane crash over Lake Constance (2002) would have been simply impossible.
Results
It didn’t end with the planes crashing. Unhappy relatives buried their children, and some families then broke up, unable to withstand such grief. The disaster over Lake Constance took many lives. The list of victims initially contained the names of 19 adults and 52 children. But on February 24, 2004, another name was added to it - Peter Nielsen, the same dispatcher of the Skyguide company who made a number of mistakes that led to such a large-scale tragedy. He was killed by Vitaly Kaloev, whose wife and children were on that ill-fated flight No. 2937. The trial in this case lasted almost a year. At the end of October 2005, Kaloyev was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 8 years in prison. Taking into account the circumstances of the case and the serious mental state of the accused, the court reduced the term to 5 years and 3 months.
Near German city Uberlingen, in the area of Lake Constance, has erected an unusual monument reminiscent of the tragedy more than 10 years ago. It is made in the form of a torn necklace, whose pearls scattered across the entire trajectory of the falling debris of two airliners.
Ten years ago, a plane crash occurred in the skies over Germany, as a result of which 52 children and 19 adults died - passengers and crew of a Tu-154 and a Boeing 757 cargo plane that collided as a result of an error by Swiss air traffic controllers.
On the night of July 1–2, 2002, in Germany, in the area of Lake Constance, a Russian passenger airliner Tu‑154 of the Bashkir Airlines company, performing a charter flight from Moscow to Barcelona (Spain), and a Boeing‑757 cargo plane of the international air transportation company DHL, flying from Bergamo (Italy) to Brussels (Belgium). On board the Tu-154 there were 12 crew members and 57 passengers - 52 children and five adults. Most of the children were sent on vacation to Spain as a reward for excellent studies by the UNESCO Committee of Bashkiria. By a tragic accident, Svetlana Kaloyeva was on the plane with 10-year-old Kostya and 4-year-old Diana, who was flying to her husband, Vitaly Kaloyev, in Spain, where he worked under a contract. The Boeing cargo plane was flown by two pilots.
As a result of the collision, the Tu-154 fell apart in the air into several parts that fell in the vicinity of the German city of Uberlingen.
As a result of the plane crash, 52 children and 19 adults were killed.
The tragedy occurred a few minutes after German air traffic controllers handed over the escort of the Russian plane to their Swiss colleagues from the center air control"SkyGuide", operating at one of the largest European airports Zurich-Kloten (Switzerland).
That night, at the Skyguide air traffic control center, there was one controller on duty instead of the required two - Peter Nielsen. He gave the Tu-154 crew a command to descend when the approaching aircraft could no longer occupy safe levels.
The main equipment for telephone communication and automatic notification of center personnel about the dangerous approach of aircraft was turned off. The main and backup telephone lines did not work. A dispatcher from the German city of Karlsruhe, who noticed the dangerous approach of the planes, tried to call 11 times - and was unsuccessful.
After the plane crash, Nielsen was suspended from work, and Swiss investigative authorities conducted a criminal investigation into the Skyguide company and its management.
On February 24, 2004, Peter Nielsen in the Zurich suburb of Kloten by Russian citizen Vitaly Kaloev, who lost his entire family - his wife, daughter and son - in a plane crash over Lake Constance. On this day, Kaloev came to the dispatcher’s house to show him photographs of his dead wife and children, but Nilsen pushed him away, and the photographs fell to the ground, which led to the grief-stricken man losing control of himself.
In October 2005, Kaloev was found guilty of murder and. In November 2007, he was released early and returned to his homeland, North Ossetia. In 2008, Vitaly Kaloev construction and architecture of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania.
Immediately after the disaster, the Swiss company Skyguide placed all the blame on the Russian pilots, who, in its opinion, did not understand the air traffic controller's instructions in English well.
In May 2004, the German Federal Office for Aircraft Accident Investigation published a conclusion on the results of its investigation into the crash.
Experts admitted that in the collision passenger airliner Tu‑154 of Bashkir Airlines with a cargo Boeing from Skyguide.
The control center in Zurich did not notice in time the danger of two aircraft converging on the same flight level. The crew of the Russian Tu-154 followed the dispatcher's command to descend, despite the fact that the on-board TICAS flight safety system required an urgent climb to altitude.
Only after the publication of the report did the Skyguide company admit its mistakes and, two years after the disaster, its director Alain Rossier apologized to the families of the victims. On May 19, 2004, Swiss President Joseph Deiss sent an official letter of apology to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the plane crash over Lake Constance.
In December 2006, Skyguide director Alain Rossier.
In September 2007, the district court of the Swiss city of Bülach found four employees of the Skyguide air traffic control service guilty of criminal negligence leading to a plane crash over Lake Constance. In total, eight employees of the Swiss company appeared in court. The accused, shifting it to the murdered dispatcher Peter Nielsen.
Four Skyguide managers accused of manslaughter. Three of them were sentenced to suspended imprisonment, one to a fine. Four other defendants were acquitted.
The Skyguide company offered the families of the victims of the disaster some compensation, provided that their claim was not considered in one of the US courts. Some families did not agree with this proposal, and at a meeting of the committee of parents of dead children in June 2004 in Ufa, in which 29 people took part, there was litigation, including the payment of compensation, in court.
On July 1, 2004, it became known that claims were filed in the courts of the United States and Spain against the Swiss air traffic control service Skyguide, who lost relatives in a plane crash over Lake Constance.
In February 2010, the Federal Administrative Court of Switzerland opened to the relatives of the victims of the plane crash. memorial complex, dedicated to the victims of the disaster.
In 2004, at the scene of the tragedy in the German city of Uberlingen, in a plane crash, it was a torn necklace, the pearls of which scattered along the trajectory of the wreckage of two planes.
In 2006, in Zurich, in front of the Skyguide building, there was a spiral with 72 candles in memory of the 71 victims of the plane crash and the killed air traffic controller.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
MK found out how the fates of relatives of the victims of the terrible plane crash turned out
They were only 1.6 seconds short of missing the American Boeing in the sky. This is less than it takes to say “one-two-three”...
Their parents have been living without them for 10 years.
Children of Bashkir Airlines Flight 2937, which completed its last flight over Lake Constance on the night of July 1-2, 2002.
That summer there was terrible heat over Ufa. In straight rows funeral buses went through the whole city; neatly glued to each windshield were pieces of paper with the names - Savchuk Veronica, Savchuk Irina, Savchuk Vladislav. Grigorieva Zhanna. Biglov Bulat. Nelyubina Elena...
71 surnames. Most of the dead were talented schoolchildren, the pride of the republic and their parents, who went on vacation to Barcelona through UNESCO Bashkiria.
“...I live as if I were flying” - Dasha Kozlova wrote in her poem on April 8, 2002, three months before the tragic flight. Now these lines are a memorial epitaph on her monument.
All the i's have been dotted a long time ago. Life and death as final destinations. The chain of accidents that led to one of the most famous and sad plane crashes of the early 21st century has been studied.
Died - was killed by Vitaly Kaloev, who lost his entire family in the sky over Lake Constance - the same ill-fated Swiss controller of the Skyguide airline, Peter Nielsen, who, out of fatigue or absent-mindedness, confused right and left, and became the unwitting cause of a collision in the air of two airliners: our Tu-154M of Bashkir Airlines, tail number RA-85816, flying on the Moscow-Barcelona course, and the Boeing 757 flying to Brussels...
“I only remember that I woke up when suddenly in the middle of the night the lights were turned on and the room was filled with strangers, says 14-year-old Katya Kuleshova, daughter of deceased flight attendant Tatyana Kuleshova, today. - Grandma felt bad. It smelled like medicine. Grandfather took me in his arms - I was only four years old then - I asked him: “Where is mom?” He replied: “Mom is at work. But she will come very soon." He said it somehow SO that I immediately understood: my mother is no more...
The plane is out of schedule
I fell from the month, from its sharp edge.
I flew for a long time
And flew to heaven...
Zoya Fedotova, 14 years old, passenger on flight 2937
They shouldn't have been in the sky that night at all. Ufa schoolchildren who, due to the fault of adults, missed their plane to Barcelona the day before.
The accompanying people brought the group to Sheremetyevo instead of Domodedovo. The mistake turned out to be fatal. The first plane took off without them.
If these children were ordinary, ordinary children, they would have been upset and returned home, but to their misfortune, almost all of them turned out to be from high-ranking families. The head of the presidential administration of Bashkortostan, Ildar Gimaev, the youngest official in the Bashkir White House, sent his 15-year-old daughter Leysan to Spain. (Later, it was he who would head the government commission that investigated the circumstances of the tragedy, in 2003 he would write a voluntary resignation, and in 2008, six years after the tragedy, he would die after surgery to remove a lung.)
Evil tongues were whispering in the city: the vouchers were intended for orphanages with many children, but the flights were entirely “golden” girls and boys.
However, the guys were truly a perfect match: young poets, artists, athletes and even one beauty queen...
Good kids from good families. They were just late for their plane.
And calls began to Ufa with a request to influence the situation, urgently equip a charter and send it to Moscow...
Of course, for ordinary teenagers, it’s unlikely that anyone would go to such lengths, but in this case...
— They hastily called for a reserve. This was the flown crew of Alexander Gross. They just got back from vacation the day before, and they were offered to take the children,” recalls Yuri Evstratov, at that time an employee of Bashkir Airlines. — Gross himself flew on this route to Barcelona 5 times, but as a co-pilot. For this reason, inspector Oleg Grigoriev went with the crew, who, according to instructions, was supposed to help the ship’s commander along the entire route.
Alexander Gross was “pulled out” on an unscheduled flight from the garden.
The very first pilot, Gross, was pulled out of the garden on an unscheduled flight: yesterday’s vacationer was watering tomatoes. The co-pilot, Murat Itkalov, Murik, as everyone called him, promised his wife goodbye: “I’ll quickly leave and go fishing!”
We worked out the route according to the scheme on the simulator in advance. We flew to Moscow and took the children, who by that time were perfectly accommodated in the hostel and no longer even seemed very worried about what had happened.
But there were still empty seats on the charter. And then it was decided to put extra tickets on sale.
An invisible spiral of accidents, probabilities, tragic coincidences began to spin...
Seven additional tickets were sold.
“The Belarusian Shislovsky family was supposed to fly to Spain from Moscow together with a tour group; from Belarus they were traveling on the Prague-Moscow train, and on the way a UAZ crashed into their train,” they tell me. — As a result, they were also late in Moscow in obtaining a visa - the group flew away without them... And then, unfortunately, charter 2937 turned up.
Svetlana Kaloyeva with her children Kostya and Diana went to Spain to visit her husband Vitaly, who worked as a builder. In the initial list of passengers, published immediately after the disaster, there are not even names next to these seven people, only initials - seven random people.
"Bread" piece of heaven
“That night, daughter, time stopped forever in our house,” 83-year-old Gennady Kharlov, father of navigator Sergei Kharlov, takes out scattered watch parts from a plastic bag dead son: dial, strap and - almost untouched, only slightly wrinkled - international passport. “The plane didn’t explode in the air, so all his papers survived, there was no fire.”
Gennady Semenovich Kharlov knows what he is talking about. He himself gave 37 years to our aviation. Party organizer, squadron commander, with the Order of Lenin on his chest - for long service and, probably, special merits that he does not want to talk about.
His wife, Sergei’s mother, has not gotten out of bed for many years after the disaster - she is right there, in next room, we hear her faint breathing.
- What to talk about? “Everything has long been finished and forgotten,” as the Kharlovs’ youngest son snaps.
If only the old man didn't cry. He is so old, hunched over, and shaking all over.
We turn the conversation to what is closer and dearer, more understandable to him, a former pilot.
About the Soviet “carcasses”, on which he started very young, having transferred from the military “Mi-2”.
And about how happy he was when his first-born, Seryozhka, also entered flight school...
The son’s 13 thousand flight hours are against his father’s 12,500.
Children should always be better than their parents.
And don't be the first to leave. Do not leave fathers alone on this earth.
“I’ll show you something that I haven’t shown to anyone yet,” the old man takes out sheets of paper on which his poems are written. “It’s more like the prose of life in rhyme, so I started composing it in my old age,” he tries to joke.
“We were very afraid that, as often happens, the human factor, that is, the crew, would be found guilty,” Kharlov says with difficulty. - They said that the pilots did not speak English sufficiently, although this was clearly not true, or something else... Of course, the guilt and inattention of the Swiss were quickly figured out, but will this bring back human lives?..
Only a dispatcher can bring two planes together to one point.
A tired Swiss in distant Zurich replaced a colleague who had gone on a break, working at two terminals at once. Despite the fact that both planes that collided were flying over German territory, they were flown by the Swiss company Skyguide. This problem between Switzerland and Germany has existed for a long time: a lack of personnel, congestion on the highway and only one dispatcher on the night shift - but who will give their “bread” piece of heaven to the other country?
There were many dangerous approaches in the skies of Europe that night. A lot of work. Attention is distracted. And I really want to sleep...
A colleague from Munich called Peter Nilsson and tried to warn him of the danger: two planes were too close to each other, but telephone line I was always busy, busy, busy...
On earth everything is decided by the clock.
In the air, time is measured in minutes, seconds and even fractions of a second. 1.6... Less than a blink.
The Germans were investigating the collision. The report nevertheless identified the Skyguide company as the main culprit. She denied it to the last and refused to pay compensation to the Russians. In May 2006, the trial began. Three company managers were sentenced to suspended prison sentences, one was fined, and four more were acquitted.
2 million 600 thousand euros were received by the relatives of the victims. Opinions were divided.
Some parents were ready to accept the losses and receive compensation on the proposed terms, while others demanded a new investigation.
Bashkir Airlines never recovered from the blow. Despite the fact that everyone understood that it was not the pilots’ fault, tickets for flights that summer were almost not sold out, and very soon this regional carrier died for a long time...
There were other reasons for bankruptcy, of course, not only this.
“The guys, the pilots, the staff didn’t disappear—they went all over the place,” says Rashid Mustafin, former deputy commander of the flight squad for organizing flight work. — We get together, perhaps, only once a year - we fly from different places, for a wake at the cemetery..."
Paper airplane graveyard
They lie just like they sat in the cabin of the airliner. One after another. Black armchairs of monuments. On the back of the gravestones are lines of children's and parents' poems.
“The world is quite cruel, but I will learn so that I won’t be afraid to live,” wrote 15-year-old Zhanna Grigorieva, a passenger on flight 2937.
“Back then, by order from above, the graves were dug up very quickly; soldiers from the nearest unit were brought in to help,” says gravedigger Emil. “There was a forest here, but it was immediately uprooted, literally in one day.” Yes, the order was not small...
Photographs have been preserved taken in those days near the local White House, Government House - lines of ambulances, white on white. There were no obituaries in the newspapers for a very long time. No one dared to give orders. Only two weeks later they appeared in solid mourning squares on the pages: our condolences to the Deputy Minister of Culture, the head of the financial and economic department, the rector of the university...
On the day of the funeral, President Putin came to the meeting. By that time, all mourning events at the cemetery had already ended. The children were buried. But the parents, having learned that the first person of the state would nevertheless arrive, and hoping that only Putin could order a proper investigation of this disaster, returned to the churchyard. They cried and waited for the head of state over the fresh hills. Six hours of waiting.
Time on earth is not measured in fractions of seconds.
“The security was tired of sitting in the bushes: there were mosquitoes that year! - so they bit the FSE officers like that, but Putin was not there and never was...”
Funeral 2 did take place, but only late in the evening. The President appeared, shook hands with everyone, and offered his condolences.
In ten years, little has changed at the cemetery. Unless the old marble slabs were replaced with new ones. And paper airplanes made of metal are still flying in a circle in the sky - a monument to the passengers of the lost flight.
Broken string of pearls
Some families whose children died over Lake Constance, unable to bear the grief, broke up. Most, thank God, were able to start new life, new babies were born, who probably would not have been born if not for that terrible night from July 1 to July 2, 2002.
Nothing is truly hopeless in this world.
The whole world wrote about the children who died over Lake Constance then (and later). Were filmed documentaries, those terrible events were reconstructed moment by moment. Tu-154 and Boeing 757 collided almost at right angles. The blow hit the fuselage, the "Tu" fell apart in the air into several parts and fell in the vicinity of the cozy German city of Uberlingen.
Yes, everyone wrote about Ufa children then...
The dead crew walked a little to the side - their children were left orphans.
The son of flight attendant Olga Bagina was soon adopted by a German policeman who worked at the scene of the disaster. Now the guy is already twenty years old, he has received a pilot’s certificate and, oddly enough, dreams of coming to Russia to study flying skills.
The son of the co-pilot, Denis Itkulov, is already trying on his father’s flying uniform.
For the sake of his granddaughter Katya, Nikolai Feoktistovich Kuleshov forced himself to forget the terrible night when his flight attendant daughter died.
Katya Kuleshova, the daughter of flight attendant Tatyana Kuleshova, is still only fourteen. She is being raised by her grandfather alone. The grandmother died shortly after the death of her daughter. The girl has no one except her grandfather.
Nikolai Feoktistovich Kuleshov is 76 years old. He is very strong and says that for the sake of his only granddaughter - a beauty and a smart girl - he finally forced himself to forget that terrible night. “I am old and therefore I know for sure: we always lose those we love too much. Therefore, you cannot love too much... For me, Tanya was the light in the window. I remember my wife, Lyubochka, in kindergarten she was working, and one winter, at night, in a snowstorm, she left her daughter in the group for the night. I was so angry with her and, despite the frost, I went into the garden. At least take a peek to see how she is doing. A lilac bush grew near the window - peeling off my hands, I climbed up the bare branches. Tanya did not sleep. And, seeing my face in the window, she screamed loudly: “The folder has come for me!” Lord, if you only knew how afraid I was always of losing her!..” - the old man cannot hold back his tears. And only the granddaughter Katya came up, looking like two peas in a pod dead mother, only half her age at that time, can calm him down.
I see an old man shaking over his only granddaughter. How she dreams of living to see the day when Katya becomes an adult. And how he understands that even great love is not a cage with chains. The girl is growing up. She must fly...
“I sent Katya and the mother of the deceased Kirill Degtyarev to Malta to teach English language. I understand that this is necessary for her future, for her studies. And no matter how afraid I am for her, I shouldn’t think about the fact that she will always be there.”
The Kuleshovs gathered for Germany on the eve of the disaster. This is tradition. Relatives of the victims, as usual, go to the site of the plane crash in July to honor their memory. There is also a monument erected there - in the form of a torn string of pearls.
But every year there are fewer and fewer people going to Germany. More than a dozen people, parents and close relatives of the victims, have already died and could not bear the loss.
Sitting in front of the TV, in his chair, the father of 14-year-old Bulat Biglov, 45-year-old Irek Biglov, died. He was just watching a program about the murder of a Swiss air traffic controller.
Vitaly Kaloev himself was released from a Swiss prison without completing his sentence. He became an official in his native Ossetia. Everyone there knows him and respects him for what he has done.
And on Saturday, on the eve of the mournful date, he was detained by the German authorities: despite the fact that Kaloyev was given a Schengen visa to fly to the 10th anniversary of the tragedy in Uberlingen, the Swiss protested. They do not want to see the murderer of Peter Nelsen, that wild Russian mountaineer, even near their own country. They are afraid of him, apparently, and do not know what else to expect from him.
10 years is quite a sufficient period for a civilized person, they believe in the prosperous West, to forget and forgive.
On the morning of July 1, a German plane, not ours, took all the relatives and friends of the victims and flew to a memorial service in Uberlingen. Vitaly Kaloev was also allowed to visit the site of the tragedy.
