Airplane collision in the sky. Collision over Lake Constance: chronicle of the tragedy Collision of 2 aircraft

Fifteen years have passed since the tragedy occurred in the skies over Germany. The 2002 plane crash over Lake Constance killed 71 people, most of whom were children.

Plane crash

The plane crash occurred in 2002 on the night from the first to the second of July in the area of ​​Lake Constance in the skies over Germany. The collision of two planes claimed the lives of 19 adults and 52 children. Almost all of the victims were passengers of the Russian Tu-154m airliner, on which the children were flying on vacation to Spain. The plane belonged to the Bashkir Airlines company; it was performing a charter flight from Moscow to Spain (Barcelona).

The second plane involved in the collision, a Boeing-757 of the international air transportation company HDL, was flying from Italy (Bergamo) to Belgium (Brussels). There were 57 passengers on board the Tu-154M, of which only five were adults, and 52 were children, as well as 12 crew members.

Airplane passengers

Among those killed in the 2002 plane crash over Lake Constance were many children. This is due to the fact that they were flying to Spain on vacation. Talented students were rewarded with a trip for high academic achievements. The UNESCO Committee provided vouchers for Bashkir children.

Random Events

After the collision over Lake Constance, it became clear that the event was preceded by a whole series of fatal accidents, which could not have been noticed if trouble had not happened. The Bashkir children should not have flown that night at all. By chance, the accompanying adults brought them to the wrong airport. Instead of Domodedovo, where their plane took off for Barcelona, ​​they ended up at Sheremetyevo. Naturally, they missed their flight.

Many schoolchildren who went on vacation were children of high-ranking officials. For example, on board was the fifteen-year-old daughter of the head of administration under the President of Bashkortostan, Leysan Gimaeva.

If there were children from ordinary families in the group, they would probably just go home, missing the plane. The schoolchildren, of course, would be disappointed, but they would still be alive.

However, events developed according to a completely different scenario. Influential parents decided to send a Bashkir Airlines plane to Moscow, which could transport their children to Spain on a charter flight. The head of the airliner's crew was Alexander Gross, who had previously flown to Barcelona and knew the route very well.

After the schoolchildren boarded the plane, it turned out that there were still several empty seats available. The decision was made to sell these seven tickets with lightning speed. So gradually the number of future victims increased.

Four tickets were purchased by the Shislovsky family from Belarus, who missed their flight and were therefore forced to fly others. Three more tickets went to Svetlana Kaloeva, a resident of North Ossetia, with two children, who was flying to her husband Vitaly, who was working under a contract in Spain. After the collision over Lake Constance, the names of the accidental passengers were not immediately clear.

How it was...

On the fateful night before the plane crash over Lake Constance, both airliners that subsequently collided were in the skies over Germany itself, but for some reason the management of their movement was transferred to the Swiss company Skyneid, located in Zurich. In this flight center, as a rule, only three people worked at night: an assistant and two dispatchers. However, it was on this terrible night that only one person was on duty. It was Peter Nielsen, who was forced to monitor two terminals at once.

When the controller noticed something was wrong, the planes were already in line at a distance of 36,000 feet, which meant that there were only seconds left before the collision. For what reasons the duty officer discovered the problem so late is unknown, but a plane crash over Lake Constance was already almost inevitable. However, even in this situation it was possible to try to do something to save the situation. But unfortunately, Peter Nelson got it completely wrong. Either he was unprepared for such emergency situations, or he was simply confused... But his erroneous commands led to the death of many people.

Erroneous dispatcher commands

When Peter Nelson realized that the liners' courses were intersecting and they were inexorably approaching each other, he tried to correct the situation. Therefore, he gave the command to the Russian plane to descend. It is worth noting that at this moment the crew themselves noticed the approach of another side from the left side. The pilots were ready to perform a maneuver in order to disperse safely.

However, after a command from the ground dispatcher on board the Russian aircraft, the automatic TCAS system was activated, which warns of the danger of approach. So, she informed about the need to gain altitude.

At the same time, an identical system activated on the Boeing, prompting the pilots to gain altitude. Perhaps the disaster could have been avoided if these commands had been followed on both planes. The co-pilot of the Russian airliner immediately noticed a discrepancy between the dispatcher and TCAS commands, which he immediately reported to the rest of the team. But I received an answer that ground commands would be carried out. Moreover, the order to descend was received again.

Whose mistake caused the tragedy?

It is difficult to blame the pilots for the plane crash over Lake Constance, because they followed commands from the ground, as prescribed by the instructions. Later, the investigation will establish the cause of the disaster - an untimely command from dispatcher Peter Nielsen. He provided erroneous information to the Russian pilots that there was a side to their right. Decoding the black boxes showed that the team was simply misled. The pilots, relying on the dispatcher, considered that there was another plane to their right, which the TCAS system had not detected, because it is no secret that ground-based installations provide more accurate data, and on-board instruments may fail for some reason.

Considering that pilots have only fractions of a second to make important decisions, and confusion in such situations is tantamount to death, the team followed the instructions of the ground attendant. It remains a mystery why none of the pilots informed Peter Nielsen that his command was contradicting the messages of the automatic safety system. Perhaps there was simply not enough time for this.

Airplane collision

After the dispatcher's command, a plane crash over Lake Constance could not be avoided. Both planes were descending. At the same time, the Russian plane carried out the command of Peter Nielsen, and the Boeing operated according to the instructions of the TCAS system. Both teams reported their actions to the ground controller, but Peter Nielsen did not hear one of the commands because they were both communicating at the same time on different frequencies. And if there were several people on duty in the control room at that time, as there should be, the information would have been heard on time.

In the last seconds before the plane crash over Lake Constance, the pilots of the two planes tried as best they could to avoid the collision by deflecting the controls. However, their attempts were in vain. The collision of the airliners occurred almost at a right angle. An HDL cargo plane crashed into a Russian one, causing the Tu-154M to split in half at an altitude of ten kilometers. The wreckage of the liner fell into four parts and scattered in the vicinity of the town of Iberlingen. And the remains of the Boeing were discovered seven kilometers from the Russian airliner.

Air crash investigation

The tragedy over Lake Constance caused long investigations. Since the disaster occurred over Germany, the German Federal Office was in charge of the investigation. The first conclusions of the commission were given only two years later.

The report presented the following reasons why a plane crash occurred over Lake Constance involving a Tu-154 and a Boeing:

1. The air traffic controller failed to correctly ensure the separation of the airliners in a timely manner.
2. The instruction to descend was given too late.

Subsequently, all charges against the pilots were dropped.

During the investigation, a number of other circumstances were revealed. As it turned out, telephone communication equipment and automatic notification of the approach of aircraft to the flight control center were turned off for unknown reasons. The backup telephone lines were also not working. A more responsible dispatcher from the city of Karlsruhe in Germany noticed the approach of the planes and repeatedly tried to call the point where Nielsen was on duty, but all attempts were unsuccessful.

Immediately after the disaster, Peter Nielsen was suspended from work until the causes and circumstances of the tragedy were clarified. As for the Skyguide company, the investigative authorities organized a criminal investigation against it.

Results of the disaster

Immediately after the plane crash, Skyguide blamed the pilots of the Russian airliner for the events. According to them, the crew incorrectly followed the commands because they did not understand the dispatcher’s instructions in English. Only in 2004 did the German Federal Office publish the official conclusion of the investigation. According to the conclusion, the dispatcher from the Skyguide company was to blame for the collision. Only after the results of the investigation were published, the company admitted its guilt. Only two years later did the director of the company bother to apologize to the families of those who died on that terrible night. And on May 19, 2004, Josef Deiss (President of Sweden) sent Vladimir Putin an official document apologizing for what happened.

It was only in December 2006 that Alain Rossier resigned from his position as director of Skyguide.

And in September 2007, a court in the Swiss town of Bülach convicted four Skyguide employees of negligence in their duties, which led to the tragedy. A total of eight people who worked for the Swiss company were put on trial. The defendants refused to admit their guilt, shifting all responsibility onto Peter Nielsen, who had already died at that time. Yet four managers were found guilty of manslaughter.

All of them were given different punishments. Three workers were given only suspended prison sentences, and one was given only a fine.

Consequences of the 2002 disaster

The series of troubles did not end after the planes crashed. Grief-stricken relatives could not withstand the trials that befell them; some families broke up after the tragedy. The tragedy claimed many lives. The list of those killed in the disaster over Lake Constance initially consisted of the names of 52 children and 19 adults. However, on February 24, 2004, another name was added to the list - Nielsen.

The same dispatcher, through whose fault the cancerous error occurred, was killed by Vitaly Kaloev, whose children and wife accidentally became passengers on the ill-fated flight. The court considered the case for a year. And in October 2005, Kaloyev admitted his guilt, sentencing him to eight years in prison. However, taking into account the serious mental state of the man, as well as all the circumstances of the case, the term was subsequently reduced to five years. Three years later, Kaloyev was released for good behavior, after which he returned to North Ossetia.

Memorial to the victims

At the site of the tragedy in 2004, a memorial was erected to those killed in a plane crash over Lake Constance - a torn string of pearls symbolizes the scattered debris of the plane. The idea for creating such a monument was the pearl necklace of the girl Diana (daughter of that same Kaloev), found at the site of the tragedy.

Almost all victims of the disaster were buried at the Southern Cemetery in Ufa. Their graves were arranged according to how people sat on the plane.

Silent Reminder

Another memorial reminds of that tragedy. In Zurich in 2006, next to the Skyguide building, a monument made of stone and glass was erected in the form of a spiral, along which 72 candles are located, symbolizing the 71 victims of the disaster and one dispatcher.

Disaster film

The terrible tragedy and its further consequences, as well as the act of Vitaly Kaloev, formed the basis of the film “Consequences,” filmed in the USA. Of course, much of it was changed and the action was moved to America, but it was the 2002 plane crash that served as the basis for filming. The main character of the film was played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. His name is Roman Melnik, he has been living and working in the USA for a long time. And then his pregnant wife and daughter finally fly to him. That is why a monument to the three will be erected at the grave... As in the real story, the Miller himself finds his daughter’s beads and her body. And also goes crazy in search of those responsible for the tragedy. The company whose dispatcher caused the disaster offers him compensation, but he does not understand why the culprit of the accident is still at large. The miller goes to the dispatcher's house with a knife and everything happens according to the same scenario as in real life. Only a few details were changed by the director, who managed to convey on the screen the incredible experiences of the main character.

15 years ago, on the night of July 1-2, 2002, two planes collided in the sky over Lake Constance as a result of the negligence of a Swiss air traffic controller - a Bashkir Airlines passenger airliner and a Boeing cargo plane. As a result of the disaster, 71 people died, including 52 children. Not finding justice in court, Russian architect Vitaly Kaloev dealt with an employee of a Swiss company, whom he considered guilty of the death of his family. What actually led to the tragedy: a combination of circumstances or errors by the crew and ground services, RT looked into.

The Bashkir Airlines plane was operating a charter flight from Moscow to Barcelona. Most of the passengers on the Tu-154 were children who were heading to Spain on vacation. The Committee of the Republic of Bashkortostan for UNESCO provided them with vouchers as an incentive for high achievements in their studies. The Boeing 757-200PF cargo aircraft operated flight DHX 611 from Bahrain to Brussels (Belgium) with an intermediate stop in Bergamo (Italy). As a result of the collision, 71 people died: crew members of both aircraft and all passengers of the Tu-154.

Fatal seconds

The Russian plane took off from Moscow at 18:48, the cargo airliner from Bergamo at 21:06.

At the time of the crash, both aircraft were over German territory, but the movement of the aircraft in the sky was controlled by dispatchers from the private Swiss company Skyguide. On the night of the tragedy, two air traffic controllers were on duty in Zurich. A few minutes before the planes collided, one of the operators went on a break. Therefore, 34-year-old dispatcher Peter Nielsen had to work simultaneously at two consoles.

As it turned out during the investigation, part of the control room equipment - the main telephone communication equipment and automatic notification of personnel about the dangerous approach of the airliners - was turned off. This was the cause of the tragedy: Nielsen gave the Russian pilots a signal to descend too late.

• Swiss air traffic controllers control flights at Zurich Airport on July 2, 2002.
• Reuters

The two aircraft were moving perpendicular to each other at the same flight level FL360. There was less than a minute left before their collision when the dispatcher noticed a dangerous approach. He gave the command to the Russian ship to descend, and the pilots immediately began to carry out his instructions. But at that moment, the automatic proximity warning system (TCAS) activated in the cockpits of both aircraft. The automation commanded the passenger liner to immediately gain altitude, and the cargo liner to descend. However, the Russian pilots continued to follow the dispatcher's instructions.

But the cargo side also descended, following TCAS commands. The pilots reported this to Nielsen, but he did not hear it.

In the last seconds before the tragedy, the crews noticed each other and tried to avoid disaster, but it was too late. At 21:35, flights 2937 and 611 collided almost at right angles at an altitude of 10,634 meters.

Boeing crashed into the fuselage of a passenger Tu-154. The impact caused the plane to break into four parts in the air. The cargo airliner lost control and fell to the ground 7 km from the Russian Tu-154.

Court of father and husband

By July 2002, Russian architect Vitaly Kaloev had already been working in Spain for two years. He completed the project near Barcelona, ​​handed it over to the customer and waited for his family, whom he had not seen for nine months. His wife and children were already in Moscow by that time, but a problem arose with purchasing tickets. And then she was offered a last minute offer - on that same Bashkir Airlines flight.

Having learned about the incident, Vitaly Kaloev immediately flew from Barcelona to Zurich, and then to Uberlingen, where the disaster occurred.

No one took responsibility for what happened then - no one asked for forgiveness from the inconsolable parents. The trials dragged on for years and did not lead to any result. The controller who allowed the two planes to collide also refused to admit his guilt.

• Vitaly Kaloev approaches the grave of his family

A year and a half after the tragedy, Vitaly Kaloev decided to meet with Peter Nielsen. He found out his address and came to his house. Kaloev did not speak German, so when Nielsen opened the door, he handed him photographs of the bodies of his children, and said only one word in Spanish: “Look.” But instead of apologizing, Nielsen hit him on the arm, knocking out the photographs. Vitaly Kaloev, according to him, does not remember what happened next - tears flowed from his eyes, his consciousness turned off. Investigators later counted 12 stab wounds on Nielsen's body.

A Swiss court found Vitaly Kaloyev guilty of murder and sentenced him to eight years in prison, but two years later the man was released for good behavior, and he returned to Ossetia.

This story received wide resonance. Discussing what happened, society was divided into two camps: those who understand why a family man, a person who had never broken the law before, could do such a thing, and those who condemn Kaloev’s act.

Ksenia Kaspari is the author of the book “Clash. The frank story of Vitaly Kaloev” - in a conversation with RT, she said that she spent a sufficient amount of time with Vitaly Kaloev and saw in him a person “very intelligent, kind, adequate and educated.”

Kaspari noted that Kaloev, unlike other relatives of the victims, saw with his own eyes the site of the tragedy and the bodies of his relatives. Because of this, it was psychologically harder for him than for others.

• Ksenia Kaspari is the author of a book about Kaloyev
• Publishing house "Eksmo"

“The relatives of the dead children flew in, laid wreaths, took DNA tests, flew away and received sealed zinc coffins. And Kaloev, although he did not directly participate in the search, on the second day he was shown photographs of the bodies that had already been found, and in one of the first photographs he saw his daughter. She was one of the first to be found, having fallen into a tree and looking virtually undamaged. He identified her,” Kaspari told RT.

“He found himself at the scene of the disaster when search operations had just begun. He, seeing fragments of bodies, various evidence of cut short lives, understood and imagined how his children died,” says Ksenia Kaspari.

In 2017, the American film “Consequences” was released, the plot of which was based on the real story of an Ossetian architect. The role of Vitaly Kaloev was played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In a conversation with RT, Ksenia Kaspari mentioned that the disaster over Lake Constance was preceded by a number of random circumstances.

The best schoolchildren of Ufa flew to Spain for vacation through the capital. But first they had problems with visas, then the children were mistakenly taken to Sheremetyevo airport, although the flight was from Domodedovo. The plane took off without them. Then a group of schoolchildren were given a new flight, but when the plane rolled out onto the runway, it turned out that food had not been loaded on board. We had to return to the airport and spend some more time loading containers with food.

At the same time, Kaloyev’s wife and children, who also had tickets for the fatal flight, were late for boarding, but they were checked in anyway.

“It was as if some unknown hand was leading to tragedy. A few seconds were not enough to separate the planes - the minutes that were spent on all these details turned out to be fateful,” Kaspari noted.

Looking for the culprit

Over the course of 15 years, in Germany, where the disaster occurred, and in Switzerland, where Skyguide is based, and in Spain, the destination of the Russian airliner, many trials were held in the case of plane crashes over Lake Constance.

There were many questions both to the dispatch company and to the German side, which did not have the right to entrust a private Swiss company to control the flight. But representatives of Skyguide immediately after the tragedy stated that the fault lay with the Russian pilots, who allegedly did not understand the instructions of the flight center operators, which is why the collision occurred.

Nevertheless, in 2004, Germany published a document with the results of the investigation, which concluded that Swiss air traffic controllers were to blame for the Tu-154 collision with Boeing. Skyguide was forced to admit guilt, and two years after the tragedy, the director of the control company apologized to the families of the victims.

• Reuters

The final verdict against eight Skyguide employees was made in 2007. Four managers were found guilty of causing death by negligence, the court sentenced three to suspended imprisonment, and one was fined. The court acquitted four more accused.

The dispatch company paid monetary compensation to the families of the victims, the amount of which was not announced. However, in addition to claims against Skyguide, relatives filed claims against two American companies that were responsible for the TCAS automated aircraft safety system.

Executive Director of the Society of Independent Air Accident Investigators Valery Postnikov, in a conversation with RT, emphasized that it is wrong to blame one person for aviation accidents.

“There are no cases in aviation when it is possible to clearly answer the question: “Who is to blame?” A tragedy is always preceded by a variety of reasons - a whole series of events and people,” says Postnikov.

RT's interlocutor noted that the entire system is built on the interconnection of instrumental and human factors, which should not allow a disaster to occur. However, he added that a collision of aircraft in the sky is one of the rarest events that occurs in aviation.

In an interview with RT, Postnikov said that in the plane crash over Lake Constance, “all the blame cannot be placed on one dispatcher.”

“In this situation, both the dispatchers and our pilots are to blame. This is a combination of shortcomings, errors, misunderstandings in the work of dispatchers and crew. But of course, the fact that only one operator was left behind the terminals, that the entire system was turned off, is absolutely unacceptable,” the expert concluded.

Follow us

On November 12, 1996, a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and an Il-76TD transport aircraft, owned by Kazakhstan, collided in mid-air in India. The collision and subsequent powerful explosion killed 349 people. The crash of two planes over Delhi is one of the worst air disasters, the third in the number of casualties in the history of civil aviation. In this regard, we decided to talk about the six most famous passenger aircraft collisions.

Collision over Charkhi Dadri

On November 12, 1996, two planes collided over the Indian city of Charkhi Dadri, killing 349 people. This is one of the largest air disasters in history, including the first in the number of casualties in the history of aircraft collisions in the air and the third in the history of civil aviation in general. Experienced Indian air traffic controller Dutta was in charge of both aircraft. The radio operator of the Kazakh flight negotiated with the dispatcher, having received all the necessary information and commands, in particular a warning about a Saudi airliner nearby, and gave the command to descend to flight level 150 and maintain it, since at flight level 140 there was a Saudi airliner on a collision course. But there is no indication that the commander and co-pilot completely understood this correctly. The radio operator asked the distance to Boeing and received the answer - 14 km. A special feature of the Il-76 aircraft is a separate position for the radio operator, who does not have his own altimeter, he only negotiates with the ground. For some unknown reason, the Kazakh plane continued its steady descent to flight level 140, and the 747 was at the same altitude at the same time. At 18:41, Datta's controller saw dots indicating airliners meet on the radar, which could mean that one of them passed over the other, but after that both aircraft stopped communicating and disappeared from the radar's visibility range. The dispatcher tried to call the planes for some time. An American military plane flying below reported a flash in the cloud and falling debris, then two fires on the ground. As it turned out later, 75 km southwest of Delhi, both planes collided and crashed to the ground. There was no one left alive. The Kazakh plane cut through the left wing of the Saudi Boeing with its tail, being 3 m below it at the time of the collision, and not 300 m higher, as it should have been. The planes, weighing more than 500 tons, fell to the ground, their parts burned for more than four hours at a distance of 8 km from each other.

Clash in Tenerife

The largest and most tragic plane crash in aviation history occurred on March 27, 1977. On this tragic day on the Spanish island of Tenerife, two Boeing 747 airlines Pan Am and KLM collided on the runway. At Los Rodeos airport there were unfavorable weather conditions, heavy fog, visibility was no more than 100 m. Adverse weather conditions, incorrect interpretation of commands by the air traffic controller, poor audibility during radio communication between the pilots - all these were the reasons that led to the plane crash.

As a result, two giant Boeing 747 airliners ended up on the same runway and were moving towards each other. The KLM airline plane began to accelerate and took off. Due to poor visibility, it was not possible to see the airliner traveling towards them at a distance of 700 m. At the last moment, realizing that the planes were moving towards each other, the KLM pilot attempted to lift the plane off the ground, but the height was not enough. The two planes actually collided head-on - the plane of the Dutch airline KLM opened the fuselage of a Pan Am Boeing 747, creating a giant hole in it, and it fell back onto the runway about 150 m from the collision site and caught fire.

The plane crash killed 583 people. All 234 passengers on board the KLM airliner died in the fire; 61 Pan Am Boeing passengers managed to survive, including the captain, co-pilot and flight engineer.

Collision over Dneprodzerzhinsk

On August 11, 1979, two Tu-134s belonging to Aeroflot collided over the Ukrainian Dneprodzerzhinsk. The plane crash occurred at 13:35 at an altitude of 8400 m. As a result, all 178 people on board died. Among the dead were 17 members of the Uzbek football club Pakhtakor, which is why the tragedy received special resonance.

For unknown reasons, dispatchers did not allow the plane with Pakhtakor on board to ascend to route 9 or 10 thousand. The State Commission determined that two air traffic controllers from Kharkov were to blame for the incident. They were subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Clash in Brazil

The plane crash involving a Boeing 737-800 and an Embraer Legacy 600 private jet occurred on September 29, 2006. On board the liner, flying from the Amazonian city of Manaus to Rio de Janeiro with an intermediate stop in Brasilia, there were 154 people - 148 passengers and 6 crew members. The collision of the two airliners occurred at an altitude of 11,278 m. The Boeing fell into the Amazon jungle, crashing vertically into the ground at speeds of up to 500 km/h, all passengers and crew members were killed. The American Embraer Legacy 600 made an emergency landing at the airport in the city of Sierra di Cachimbu; the five people on board were not injured; the plane's wing was seriously damaged.

Collision over the Kaluga region

On June 23, 1969, a military An-12BP and a civilian Il-14M of Aeroflot collided in the sky over the Yukhnovsky district of the Kaluga region. As a result of the disaster, all 120 people in them died. Avoiding powerful cumulus clouds, the planes first collided with their right wings, and then the An-12 crashed into the tail of the Il-14. The impact of the military aircraft tore off the right wing along with the engines, after which it went into a tailspin and rushed towards the ground. The right wing and upper part of the fuselage were torn off from the passenger plane, after which it also went into a dive. An-12 crashed into a field near the village of Vypolzovo, and an Il-14 crashed into a field near the village of Troitsa. The distance between the fallen planes was 3800 m. All 96 people on board the An-12 and 24 on board the Il-14 were killed in the disaster. The collision occurred at an altitude of 2910-2960 m, from which it was concluded that both crews violated the established altitudes when passing powerful cumulus clouds.

Collision over Lviv region

On May 3, 1985, in the sky near Zolochev (Lvov region) there was a head-on collision between two aircraft: a passenger Tu-134A flying a Tallinn-Lvov-Chisinau flight, and a military transport An-26 flying from Lvov to Moscow. The collision killed all 94 people on both planes.

On that day, the military An-26 and the passenger Tu-134 flew towards each other at different altitudes. Because of another military aircraft, the An-24, the “carcass” was not given permission to descend. When the An-24 was far behind the Tu-134, the air traffic controller made a fatal mistake and confused the An-24 with the An-26. Therefore, he gave the command to the Tu-134 pilots to descend. The military plane was flying at the same altitude as the passenger plane. Due to cloud cover, the plane crews noticed each other too late and turned sharply to the right. But due to the short distance, the planes collided on the left planes. Disintegrating in the air, the Tu-134 and An-26 crashed to the ground and exploded. All 94 people flying in them (79 in the Tu-134 and 15 in the An-26) died.

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, there were 67 passengers on board the Russian TU-154 passenger plane, owned by Bashkir Airlines, 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 UNESCO Committee of the republic as an incentive for high academic performance. 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 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:

1. 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.
2. 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 staff 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 sentence to 5 years and 3 months.

Near the German city of Uberlingen, in the area of ​​Lake Constance, an unusual monument was erected, 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.

In 2002, Vitaly Kaloev lost his family in a plane crash over Lake Constance. Due to an error by an employee of the air traffic control company Skyguide, 71 people died, including Kaloyev’s wife and two children. 478 days later he killed air traffic controller Peter Nielsen and spent the next four years in a Swiss prison. 13 years later, a film was made about those events in the United States with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role. This is a drama about a man whose life was destroyed overnight. The prototype of Schwarzenegger’s hero rarely communicates with journalists, but Vitaly Kaloev found time to meet with a Lenta.ru correspondent and talk about his fate.

Now he will have more free time. He recently celebrated his sixtieth birthday and retired. For eight years he worked as Deputy Minister of Construction of North Ossetia. He was appointed to this post shortly after his early release from a Swiss prison.

“Vitaly Konstantinovich Kaloev, whose fate is known on all continents of the globe, was awarded the medal “For the Glory of Ossetia,”- reports the website of the Ministry of Construction and Architecture of the Republic. - On the day of his 60th birthday, he received this highest award from the hands of the Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Boris Borisovich Dzhanaev.”

News from Hollywood and Vladikavkaz came in the second half of January with a difference of less than two weeks. “The film is based on real events: the plane crash in July 2002 and what happened 478 days later,”- indicates the profile site imdb.com. Vitaly’s wife Svetlana and their children, eleven-year-old Konstantin and four-year-old Diana, died in the plane crash. They all flew to the head of the family in Spain, where Kaloev designed houses. And on February 22, 2004, his attempt to talk to Peter Nielsen, an employee of the air traffic control company Skyguide, ended in the murder of the dispatcher on the threshold of his own home in the Swiss town of Kloten: twelve blows with a pocket knife.

“I knocked. Nielsen came out— Kaloev told Komsomolskaya Pravda reporters in March 2005. — I first motioned for him to invite me into the house. But he slammed the door. I called again and told him: Ich bin Russland. I remember these words from school. He said nothing. I took out photographs that showed the bodies of my children. I wanted him to look at them. But he pushed my hand away and sharply gestured for me to get out... Like a dog: get out. Well, I said nothing, I was offended. Even my eyes filled with tears. I extended my hand with the photographs to him a second time and said in Spanish: “Look!” He slapped my hand and the photographs flew off. And it started from there.”

Later, Skyguide's guilt in the plane crash was recognized by the court, and several of Nielsen's colleagues received suspended sentences. Kaloyev was sentenced to eight years, but was released early in November 2008.

In Vladikavkaz, Deputy Minister Kaloev led federal and international projects: the TV tower on Bald Mountain - beautiful, with a cable car, a rotating observation deck and a restaurant - and the Caucasian Music and Cultural Center named after Valery Gergiev, designed in the workshop of Norman Foster. Both objects have passed all the formalities - all that remains is to wait for funding. The tower is apparently more needed: the current television tower in North Ossetia is about half a century old, and is in good condition. But the center is more unusual: several halls, an amphitheater, a school for gifted children. “A very technically complex project - linear calculations, nonlinear calculations, each element separately and the entire structure as a whole,”— the retired deputy minister evaluates the creativity of Foster’s colleagues.

Vitaly Kaloev speaks more modestly and harshly about personal achievements: “I think that I lived my life in vain: I couldn’t save my family. What depended on me is the second question.” Vitaly avoids detailed judgments about what does not depend on him. The film "478" is no exception. Kaloev, in principle, appreciates Arnold Schwarzenegger for his roles as “big, good men.” At the same time, the prototype is confident: Schwarzenegger (Victor in the film) will play what is written in the script, from which Vitaly does not expect anything good. “If it were at the everyday level, that would be one question. But here is Hollywood, politics, ideology, relations with Russia.”, he says.

The main thing Vitaly asks is: there is no need to show that he fled somewhere, like in a European film based on the same plot. “He came openly, he left openly, he didn’t hide from anyone. Everything is in the case materials, everything is reflected.”

The authors of the Hollywood film assure that in the role of Vitaly, Schwarzenegger will reveal himself in a new way - not as “the last action hero,” but as a purely dramatic artist. Actually, if you follow real events, it won’t work out any other way. “At ten in the morning I was at the scene of the tragedy,- Kaloev testifies. — I saw all these bodies - I froze in tetanus and could not move. A village near Uberlingen, the school had its headquarters there. And nearby, at an intersection, as it turned out later, my son fell. I still can’t forgive myself for driving nearby and not feeling anything, not recognizing him.”

To the question “maybe you need to forgive yourself more?” there is no direct answer. There is a reflection on what brought Vitaly Kaloev fame “on all continents of the globe”: “If a person has done something for the sake of his loved ones and relatives, he cannot regret it later. And you can’t feel sorry for yourself. If you feel sorry for yourself for half a second, you will go down, you will sink. Especially when you’re sitting: there’s nowhere to rush, there’s no communication, all sorts of thoughts creep into your head - this, and this, and this. God forbid you feel sorry for yourself.” About Peter Nielsen’s family, where there are three children left, Vitaly said eight years ago: “His children are growing up healthy and cheerful, his wife is happy with her children, his parents are happy with their grandchildren. Who should I be happy about?”

It seems that most of all Kaloev pities the German volunteers and police from the summer of 2002: “My instincts became sharper to the point that I began to understand what the Germans were talking about among themselves, without knowing the language. I wanted to participate in the search work - they tried to send me away, but it didn’t work. They gave us an area further away where there were no bodies. I found some things, plane wreckage. I understood then, and I understand now, that they were right. They really couldn’t gather the required number of policemen in time - who was there, they took away half of them: some fainted, some did something else.”

The Germans, according to Vitaly, “In general, they are very sincere people, simple.” “I hinted that I would like to erect a monument in the place where my girl fell, - immediately one German woman began to help and began collecting funds,”- says Kaloev. And then he returns to the days of searching: “I put my hands on the ground - I tried to understand where the soul remained: in this place, in the ground - or flew away to where. I moved my hands and saw some roughness. He began to take out the glass beads that were on her neck. I started collecting it and then showed it to people. Later, one architect made a common monument there - with a torn string of beads.”

Vitaly Kaloev is trying to remember everyone who helped him. It turns out not quite: “A lot of guys from everywhere gave money, for example, to my older brother Yuri, so that he could come to Switzerland one more time and visit me.”. For two years, every month they sent “a hundred local money in an envelope to buy cigarettes” to Kaloyev’s cell; on the envelope there is the letter W, the secret of which the grateful recipient still wants to know. Special thanks - naturally, to Taimuraz Mamsurov, the head of North Ossetia at that time: “I appointed him to the ministry here, helped there. “To not be afraid to come, as it was believed, to a criminal, a murderer, for trial in Zurich to support him was worth a lot for a leader of such rank.” Special thanks to Aman Tuleyev, governor of the Kemerovo region: “Three or four times he simply gave money, part of his salary. And in Moscow he also gave me so that I could dress up a little.”

And the letters, Kaloev recalls, came from everywhere - from Russia, Europe, Canada and Australia. “Even from Switzerland itself I received two letters: the authors apologized very much to me for what happened. When they told me that I could take 15 kilograms with me. I went through the letters, removed the envelopes - there was still more than twenty kilos of mail alone. They looked and said: “Okay, take both the mail and your things.”

“The Swiss deported Kaloev quietly and unnoticed. The Russian side should have acted in the same way. Instead, it’s an ugly anti-legal show,”— retired police major general appreciated the ceremonial meeting of the Swiss prisoner in Domodedovo Vladimir Ovchinsky, currently advisor to the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs. Opponents of the glorification of Kaloyev especially protested the statement of the Nashi movement: “Kaloev turned out to be... A man with a capital letter. And he found himself punished and humiliated for the whole country... If there were at least a little more people like Kaloev, the attitude towards Russia would be completely different. Worldwide".

“I arrived, I didn’t expect that I would be greeted so warmly in Moscow. Maybe it was unnecessary, but in any case it’s nice,”- says Vitaly Kaloev eight years later.

“You can’t teach how to live after this.”, he assures when it comes to the relatives of those killed in the plane crash over Sinai. — The pain may have dulled a little, but it does not go away. You can force yourself into work, you have to work - at work a person is distracted: you work, you solve people’s problems... But there is no recipe. I still haven't recovered. But there is no need to give up. If you need to cry, cry, but it’s better alone: ​​no one saw me with tears, I didn’t show them anywhere. Maybe, perhaps, on the very first day. We must live with the destiny that is destined for us. Live and help people."

Receptions with Deputy Minister Kaloyev on personal matters, of course, practically did not stop for all eight years: national tradition plus the status of a famous fellow countryman. “Ask for money for medicine, building materials for repairs, for someone to arrange a high-tech operation,— Vitaly lists. — I know both my colleague ministers and their deputies—you turn to them. It didn't always work out, but something did work out. Forty to fifty percent.” The schools that received the least refusals were those from which they came for new windows or major repairs. Or even a lecture from the Deputy Minister - “for high school students, about what principles should be in a person’s life.”

A separate line includes calls to Kaloyev from the colonies. “I don’t know how they found out my phone number. “Can you send me some cigarettes?” - of course I will. There was a man named Kuznetsov, he knocked down an Uzbek with one blow in St. Petersburg when he began to pester his son. They organized a teleconference, I came out in support of him.”

Now most of all Vitaly wants to be left alone: “I want to live as a private person - that’s it, I don’t even go to work.”. First, the heart: bypass surgery. Secondly, Vitaly got married last year, thirteen years after the tragedy. The only thing he would like “from the public” is to come to Moscow on Victory Day, to join the “Immortal Regiment” with a portrait of his father: Konstantin Kaloev, artilleryman.

“I was provoked a lot on the topic of how, for example, Bashkiria, where most of those killed on that plane are from, differs from Ossetia, Ossetia from central Russia,” says Vitaly. - They meant, of course, to lead to conversations about blood feud and similar things. I always answered this way: it is absolutely no different, because we are all Russians. A person who loves his family, his children, will do anything for them. There are many people like me in Russia. If I had not gone and walked this path to the end - I just wanted to talk to him, accept an apology - then after death I would not have had a place next to my family. I wouldn't want to be buried next to them. I wouldn't be worthy of it. And for them, we are all Russian anyway. Incomprehensible, scary Russians.”