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 aircraft to their Swiss colleagues from the SkyGuide air control center 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, poorly understood the dispatcher’s instructions in English.
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 the collision of a 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 legal action, including the payment of compensation.
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 a memorial complex dedicated to the victims of the disaster to the relatives of the victims of the plane crash.
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
I just demanded that the people from the airline apologize to the relatives of the victims, as is humanly possible, but they constantly got out of it...
“West is West, East is East, and they will never come together,” wrote Kipling. But in the tiny Swiss town of Kloten, not far from Zurich, not just two civilizations came together, but two completely different mentalities that spoke completely different languages.
Russian Vitaly Kaloyev did not need any compensation or court decisions, he just wanted to finally hear a human apology from those who - albeit unwittingly - destroyed his family. Swiss Peter Nielsen thought only about the legal consequences. “An apology implies an admission of guilt, and this can lead to undesirable court decisions,” the lawyers told them.
Therefore, Nielsen did not let Kaloyev onto the threshold of his house.
I rang the doorbell again and told him: “Ich bin Russland,” said Kaloev. - 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 to him with the photographs for the second time and said in Spanish: “Look!” He slapped me on the hand - the pictures flew to the ground... My eyes went dark. It even seemed to me that my children were turned over in their coffins, thrown out of them, that is, from the coffins...
Further events were reconstructed by the investigation. Not remembering himself with anger, Kaloev grabbed a Wenger folding Swiss knife from his pocket - the most ordinary folding knife that can be bought in any store. The blade is only 10 centimeters long.
With this knife, he rushed at Peter and began to chop up his enemy, striking anywhere: in the chest, in the face, in the mouth twisted with a grin...
Nielsen tried to resist, but in vain - in just a minute, Kaloev inflicted 17 stab wounds on the victim. Nine blows hit the chest - the knife pierced the lungs and heart. Several blows landed in the face - the mouth was cut on both sides almost from ear to ear, two teeth were knocked out. Kaloev also cut his victim’s femoral artery and veins...
Hearing Nielsen's screams, his wife Mette jumped out onto the terrace and saw a terrible picture: her husband was lying in a pool of blood, and a scary black-bearded man was standing over him with a knife in his hand. She rushed to her neighbors screaming for help.
But Vitaly Kaloev, not paying any attention to the screams, simply turned around and slowly walked away on foot - as if on autopilot, he walked to the Welcome Inn hotel, where he stayed when he arrived in Kloten. Somewhere halfway there, he remembered the bloody knife that he was still clutching in his hand. Kaloyev threw the knife into some ditch - the police then dug through half the city, trying to find the murder weapon. Unnoticed by anyone - at six o'clock the streets of Swiss towns literally die out - he reached the hotel. In the room, he took off his bloody clothes and shoes and put them, along with blood-splattered photographs, in a bag, which he hid in the trash near the exit of the hotel's underground garage. He returned to the room and began to wait. What? He himself didn’t know what exactly. There was no longer any point in living anymore.
Detention of Vitaly Kaloev. Photo: © REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz
Vitaly Kaloev just sat in the room and waited for something, looking at one point on the wall.
Police special forces broke into his room only a day later.
Regular builder
Before this monstrous tragedy, Vitaly Kaloev was an ordinary builder from North Ossetia. He was born on January 15, 1956 in the city of Vladikavkaz, formerly Ordzhonikidze. His father Konstantin Kambolatovich taught the Ossetian language at school, his mother Olga Gazbeevna worked as a teacher in a kindergarten. Vitaly also had two brothers and three sisters, among them he is the youngest. At the same time, the parents were most proud of Vitaly, who adored reading since childhood. Already at the age of five, he read fluently and learned poetry by heart, and at school he got straight A's.
After graduating from school, Kaloev entered a construction technical school, then served in the army, entered the Institute of Architecture and Construction, then got a job in the construction department of Ossetia.
In 1991, he married Svetlana Gagievskaya, who worked as the director of the local branch of Sberbank.
Soon the couple had two children - son Kostya in 1991 and daughter Diana in 1998.
In a word, this was a friendly and very wealthy family by Ossetian standards: Vitaly headed the construction department of Vladikavkaz, Svetlana worked as deputy director for finance of the Daryal brewing plant, the son studied at the most prestigious school. Then the financial crisis of 1998 hit the country, and many local businesses declared bankruptcy. And then Vitaly Kaloev decided to find work abroad. In 1999, his construction department signed a contract with a Spanish company and he left to build residential buildings in Barcelona.
01.07.2002
The family of Vitaly Kaloyev got on this flight by accident. In Moscow, Svetlana and her children had a transfer, but due to weather conditions they missed their flight and got stuck in Sheremetyevo. And after three hours of waiting, the dispatcher offered the Kaloevs three free seats on board a Tu-154 charter flight of Bashkir Airlines, on which a group of teenagers were flying to Spain - the best students of a UNESCO special school, winners of various Olympiads, who received free vacation packages on the Mediterranean coast . There were several empty seats on board.
On the night of July 1, 2002, a Tu-154 collided in the air with a Boeing 747 aircraft of the international logistics company DHL, flying from Bahrain to Brussels - there were no passengers on board, only two experienced pilots. The disaster occurred near the small town of Iberlingen, near Lake Constance.
As it later turned out, the crash occurred due to the fault of dispatchers of the private Swiss company Skyguide, which managed air traffic in this area of Germany. As experts have found out, two factors led to the disaster. On the eve of the tragedy, equipment was changed in the control room, but the new systems worked with malfunctions and errors, which the dispatchers were honestly warned about by posters hanging around the office. True, the dispatchers themselves did not pay any attention to these warnings.
Moreover, at the time of the tragedy, in violation of all norms and rules, only two people were working in the control room, one of whom was also out for a lunch break. As a result, 34-year-old Peter Nielsen had to independently cope with two remote controls and give commands to the pilots.
Because some of the equipment in the room was turned off, the controller noticed too late that the planes were dangerously close to each other. A minute before the collision, he tried to correct the situation and transmitted instructions to the Tu-154 to descend, although the automatic system for warning of dangerous approaches, on the contrary, recommended the pilots to gain altitude. The Boeing 747 also began to descend, but Nielsen, not having heard his message, made a second fatal mistake, mixing up the sides: he told the Tu-154 pilots that the Boeing was on the right, while in reality the plane was on the left.
Seconds before the collision, the plane pilots saw each other and made a desperate attempt to prevent a disaster - but it was too late.
Pearl necklace
Vitaly Kaloev, as soon as he heard about the disaster in the skies over Germany, dropped everything and went to Lake Constance. He was one of the first to arrive at the scene of the disaster. The police did not want to let him into the scene of the tragedy, but they met him halfway when they learned that he would be looking for the dead with them.
Already on the first day of work, he found a torn pearl necklace of his four-year-old daughter Diana in the forest - a few years later this image was embodied in the monument “Torn String of Pearls”, installed at the site of the disaster.
Next, Vitaly found the body of Diana’s four-year-old daughter, who, to the surprise of all rescuers, was practically unharmed. But the search engines managed to find the disfigured bodies of his wife Svetlana and ten-year-old son Konstantin only after a week and a half of work.
“I spent ten days searching for the remains of my dear children and wife,” he wrote on a website dedicated to the memory of the victims of the disaster. “My life stopped on this tragic date of 07/01/2002. I can only live with memories. The only consolation is visiting them every day graves in the cemetery in Vladikavkaz, where they are buried."
The wreckage of a crashed Tupolev at the crash site. Photo: © AP Photo/Diether Endlicher
During rescue operations from German rescuers, Kaloyev heard for the first time the name of the dispatcher Peter Nielsen, because for a long time the management of Skyguide generally denied any involvement in the disaster over Lake Constance. After this, Vitaly approached the airline’s management several times and asked the same question regarding the extent of the dispatcher’s guilt in the accident over the lake. But no one wanted to talk to him.
How to make money from tragedy
The investigation into the causes of the tragedy, which was carried out by the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, took 22 months. At the same time, the management of the Skyguide company dodged as best they could. The Swiss were also helped in this by the European press, which from the very first minutes of the tragedy reflexively blamed the Russian side for what had happened: they say, everything happened because the Bashkir Airlines pilots allegedly did not know English.
Then Skyguide's lawyers set a condition for the relatives of the victims: in exchange for monetary compensation, they had to renounce all claims against other participants in the disaster in favor of the company. The calculation of compensation was drawn up with European meticulousness: parents for a deceased child - 50 thousand francs, a spouse for a spouse - 60 thousand, a child for a parent - 40 thousand. According to experts, such a requirement allowed Skyguide to file claims against DHL and even... make money from this business!
It was then that Russian people looked with surprise at cynical Europe and wondered: does this really happen in Europe?!..
Relatives of those killed in the plane crash hold placards in front of the district court in Buelach near Zurich, May 21, 2007. Photo: © AP Photo/KEYSTONE/Alessandro Della Bella
Only pressed to the wall by irrefutable facts, the Swiss through gritted teeth admitted the guilt of the management of Skyguide, which did not provide the control center with enough personnel during the night shift. At the same time, no one officially named Peter Nielsen as the culprit of the collision, and Skyguide only temporarily suspended him from work and sent him to psychological rehabilitation, without even imposing penalties.
But Vitaly Kaloev all this time lived with an obsession to achieve justice, even illusory. He wanted people who treated the relatives of the victims like garbage to finally admit their guilt and ask for forgiveness.
If he apologized...
A year after the tragedy, Kaloev came to a funeral ceremony in Iberlingen and demanded a conversation with the director of Skyguide, Alan Rossier.
I went up to him, took out photographs of the children’s graves and asked: “If your children were lying like this, how would you talk?” - Kaloev recalled. - But he didn’t even deign me to answer. Then I came to their residence and spoke harshly. I said: “You took my family away from me, and now you turn your nose up!” And forced the director to talk to me. He asked: “Are you guilty?” At first he snapped: “No. The pilots should have listened to their navigational safety device.” “But if your controller had not intervened, the planes might have flown apart?” He nodded: "Yes." I still forced him to admit his mistake. I achieved what all lawyers and jurists could not do!.. Then the director invited me to have lunch together, but I thought: “Am I going to eat at the same table with the murderers of my children?!” And he refused. And other parents agreed, and, as they told me, this Rossier cried in that restaurant... I hoped that his conscience had awakened. But it was not so.
He did not even respond to the letter offering monetary compensation.
Alain Rossier. Photo: © AP Photos/ Keystone, Walter Bieri
I didn't even look at this letter. Money in exchange for memory?! This was after that meeting with the director. I realized: they don’t consider us people!
Instead, he began to seek a meeting with the dispatcher Nielsen, but in response, in November 2003, he received a letter from Skyguide's lawyers, in which Vitaly Kaloev was notified that the company and the dispatcher had nothing to apologize to him for.
Since Vitaly Kaloev did not know where to find the dispatcher, he turned to the Moscow detective agency "Maigre-2" with a request to compile a dossier on everyone working at Skyguide. The dossier was compiled by the Swiss colleagues of the capital's detectives themselves for a generous fee. True, at the request of the Swiss, Kaloev signed a guarantee not to cause physical harm to any of the persons whose photographs were provided. However, as Kaloev stated, at that moment he had no intention of causing physical suffering to anyone. He just wanted an apology.
Then Kaloev, through acquaintances in Vladikavkaz, bought a foreign passport in the name of a certain Vasily Glukhov. As he later stated in court, he simply did not want to be arrested immediately upon arrival in Zurich - on the orders of his lawyers.
On February 24, 2004, Kaloev appeared on the threshold of Nielsen’s house and again took out photographs of his dead children: “Do these children really not deserve to at least apologize to them?!..”
It is interesting that Peter Nielsen, who was warned by Skyguide’s lawyers about the persistent interest that the Russians were showing in his person, bought himself a Swiss Sphix SDP pistol for self-defense, with which he constantly went to work. But Vitaly took Nielsen by surprise - when he was at home, the gun was in the gun safe so that small children would not accidentally find the weapon.
Out of frustration, the dispatcher hit the hand with the photographs, the cards with the portraits of Diana and Kostya fell into the dirt, and Vitaly, in a state of passion, attacked Nielsen with a folding knife.
If he had simply apologized, none of this would have happened, he repeated over and over again in court.
Sentence
The 36-year-old dispatcher became the latest, 72nd, victim of an accident over Lake Constance. He is survived by his wife and three children.
Dispatcher Peter Nielsen. Screenshot © L!FE
Within an hour after the murder, the police sent out a tip on a man of oriental appearance, dressed in black trousers and a black coat. All roads were blocked - the police were sure that the killer would try to escape from the country.
Kaloyev was caught by accident - when a hotel employee, after watching TV, decided to call the police so that, just in case, they would check their bearded guest, who had not left his room for a day.
Already at the first interrogation, Kaloev signed a confession to the murder - he saw no point in hiding. At the same time, Vitaly Kaloev expressed indignation that in Switzerland the investigation of the disaster is at a standstill.
So you think those guilty of negligent homicide should be sent to prison? - the investigator asked him.
The most important thing for me is that they apologize. I don't want them to go to jail. You won't get my children back anyway.
Why do you need these apologies? - the Germans were perplexed.
This is all I can do for my family. I live in a cemetery, thinking about only one thing: how to achieve justice.
President of the Republic of North Ossetia Taimuraz Mamsurov speaks to the media outside the court in Zurich, Switzerland, Tuesday, October 25, 2005. Photo: © AP Photo/Keystone, Walter Bieri
After the trial, journalists asked Kaloev: if he so demands an apology from Skyguide, then doesn’t he want to apologize to the Nielsen family for the crime he committed?
“I will find such an opportunity,” Kaloev answered after a moment of silence. - I feel sorry for his children.
National hero of Ossetia
Two years later - in November 2007 - by a court decision, Kaloev was released for exemplary behavior.
Almost the entire prison knew me,” Vitaly Kaloev later recalled. - When I went for a walk, many people came up to me to say hello. But until I found out how and what, I didn’t shake hands with anyone: pedophiles and sexual rapists were sitting there too. I was afraid that I would shake hands with such a person, and then, I think, I wouldn’t wash my hand.
In North Ossetia, the release of Vitaly Kaloev was perceived as a national holiday. At the Vladikavkaz airport, the national hero was met by the head of the republic, Taimuraz Mamsurov, and fans of the Alania club.
Russian Vitaly Kaloev arrived in Moscow (Domodedovo Airport). Swiss authorities have released from prison Russian Vitaly Kaloyev, who was previously convicted of murdering a dispatcher for the Swiss company Skyguide. Photo: © RIA Novosti / Anton Denisov
In 2008, Kaloev received a high post in the government of the republic: he was approved for the post of Deputy Minister of Construction Policy and Architecture of the republic. It is Kaloev who has been overseeing all significant projects for the last 10 years, for example, the construction of a television tower on Lysaya Gora - with a rotating observation deck and a restaurant, just like in Moscow. Another project is the Caucasian Musical and Cultural Center named after Valery Gergiev, designed in the workshop of Norman Foster.
In this post, he became a real people's intercessor - a reception on personal issues with Deputy Minister Kaloyev was scheduled for months in advance. They come to him with any questions: they need money for medicine, building materials for repairs, to arrange a high-tech operation for someone. They know that the people's hero of the republic will not refuse.
Kaloev’s phone is also ringing off the hook with calls from the colonies: prisoners all over the country believe that only an official who has served time will meet them halfway. Moreover, most often prisoners ask to resolve the issue of prison parcels or to open a prison kiosk where they can buy tea and cigarettes.
The story of Vitaly Kaloev has already become the basis for a feature film: in 2017, the Hollywood drama “Consequences” was released, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger starred. True, Vitaly Kaloev himself criticized the film and said that he was dissatisfied with Schwarzenegger’s performance: they say that the former governor of California is only trying to arouse pity for himself, instead of seeking justice.
Still from the film "Consequences". Photo: © kinopoisk.ru
It’s as if he’s asking for the entire film to be pitied and petted. I will say that this was not on my part, I do not want to be pitied. I wanted and insisted that the authorities understand what had happened, so that the perpetrators would receive the deserved punishment. That's all.
15 years ago, Vitaly Kaloev lost his entire family in a plane crash over Lake Constance. He subsequently killed the air traffic controller who was on duty at the time of the plane collision. Ksenia Kaspari, the author of a documentary novel dedicated to these tragic events, in her book talks about how the murder happened, and whether it was accidental or deliberate. You will learn more about the motives of a widower who has already served his sentence from an excerpt exclusively provided to our portal by the EKSMO publishing house.
May 3, 2017 · Text: Ksenia Kaspari, excerpt from the novel “Clash”, published with abbreviations
The documentary novel “Collision,” written with the direct participation of its protagonist Vitaly Kaloev, tells the story of a plane crash over Lake Constance, which is considered the most terrible page in the history of domestic aviation.
On July 2, 2002, a DHL Boeing cargo plane and a Bashkir Airlines passenger plane colliding in the sky over the German city of Uberlingen, operating a charter flight from Moscow to Barcelona. Most of the passengers of the crashed TU-154 were children. Vitaly Kaloev lost his wife Svetlana and two children - 10-year-old Kostya and 4-year-old Diana - in this disaster. He is the only one of all the relatives of the victims who will take part in the search operation at the crash site. And then, without waiting for the results of the investigation, he will kill the dispatcher who monitored the airspace during the tragedy.
On the 15th anniversary of the plane crash over Lake Constance, the Eksmo publishing house published a documentary novel dedicated to the tragedy
“Helmut Sontheimer was appointed as a police escort. In his car they quickly covered the road, passing all the checkpoints without stopping. The wreckage was seen from afar. The tail of the Tupolev, buried in fire foam, lay right on the country road. A few meters away are the chassis and turbines. Twisted, soot-covered metal. Someone's hand cleared the Russian flag on the fuselage. Dozens of police and experts in protective suits. Bodies were taken out of the wreckage.
Vitaly, I'm sorry, but this cannot be done. – Helmut (policeman - website note) stopped Kaloev, who tried to enter the plane after the experts.
- What if my son is there? Or daughter? - he shouted back. - I have a right! These are my children!
- Vitaly, we were allowed to be here only on the condition that we would not interfere with the work of the operational services! Please! I'll have to handcuff you!
Svetlana, wife of Vitaly Kaloev, with daughter Diana (spring 1999)
Vitaly stood at the wreckage until all the remains found there were removed. Every time policemen with a stretcher appeared from the darkness of the cabin, he shuddered, but forced himself to look. Some of the bodies were so disfigured that a simple glance was not enough, and he ran after the stretcher until he was completely sure that it was not his child. The bodies and their fragments were piled in a clearing, where other police officers put them in bags and carried them to a truck parked on the side of the road.
Vitaly, do you want me to say a prayer? “The pastor saw that Kaloev was shaking from barely restrained tears.
The priest wanted to come closer and hug Vitaly, but he felt that he was in complete confusion and did not at all crave this, but on the contrary.
Prayer?! – Kaloev shouted back to him. “After all this,” he pointed to the bodies, “do you still believe in God?!” If he exists, your God, then why did he allow this to happen?! – Vitaly began to breathe heavily, holding back his anger and tears.
Six minutes to Earth
[…] The expert asked Vitaly the standard questions in this case: dates of birth, names, special signs, what they were wearing. A saliva sample was taken in case a DNA test was required.
“And yet,” the expert, clearly timid, lowered his eyes, “we have photographs of already discovered bodies.” If you're ready...
He handed Kaloyev a stack of photographs. Vitaly looked at the first two, and looking at the third, he suddenly shouted:
- Diana! My Diana!
He heard his voice as if from the outside. A terrible, hysterical cry of a stranger. Vitaly went blind from the tears that had welled up, the world swam before his eyes. He lost control of himself, his soul seemed to leave him, breaking his ribs, tearing his flesh. Pain permeated everything. Just continuous pain!
Maya (translator - website note) hugged Vitaly, trying to calm him down, to stop this cry, but he looked through her, not seeing or hearing anything, as if he was not here. Maya turned so pale that she seemed about to faint. Helmut with difficulty tore her away from Vitaly and took her out into the fresh air. There she was examined by ambulance doctors who were on duty at the headquarters. When they returned back, Kaloev had already pulled himself together.
Maya, tell them that I want to see my daughter!
Kostya and Diana at a newly planted cherry tree in the courtyard of the Kaloyevs’ house (spring 2001)
Helmut had anticipated this request and was afraid of it. The place where the bodies were kept was carefully hidden. In Überlingen and its surroundings there was no morgue capable of holding so many bodies. And the remains were temporarily taken to the Goldbach adits. They began to be built in the fall of 1944 after a series of intense bombings of Friedrichshafen. Especially for this, a “branch” of Dachau was opened in the vicinity of Uberlingen, where more than 800 prisoners of war were transferred. These were mainly Poles and Russians. They worked around the clock. In less than seven months, a four-kilometer-long tunnel was dug inside the rock. This cost the lives of two hundred prisoners.
And now, half a century later, the bunker that Soviet prisoners of war had built for the Nazis suddenly became a temporary “shelter” for 52 dead Russian children. Understanding this terrible irony of fate, the Germans kept the strictest secret where they had to store the bodies.
Vitaly,” Helmut suddenly realized that he was speaking to this unfortunate Russian as if he were a child, “you know, this is forbidden...
- I don’t care about their prohibitions! - Kaloev immediately flushed. - Everyone already knows that bodies are taken to adits. You're the only one making a secret out of it! If I'm not allowed to see my daughter, I'll go there myself!
- I'll talk to management. Perhaps they will make an exception for you again. You've already identified her.
The headquarters took a break to coordinate this decision with the ministry. Helmut suggested that Vitaly go to the place where Diana was found. The girl’s body was discovered the morning after the disaster on a farm twenty kilometers from Ovingen. As Helmut said on the way, Diana was seen by the daughter of the farm owner, driving the cows out to pasture.
Experts inspect the wreckage of the Tu-154 in Owingen
I'm still trying to remember the acceleration due to gravity... 9.8? - Vitaly suddenly asked.
“Yes, 9.8 meters per second,” Helmut confirmed. - Why are you asking about this?
- I’m trying to calculate how long they flew to the ground before dying...
- Vitaly, they died at the moment of the collision! - Michael (psychologist - website note) intervened in the conversation. - The planes collided, there was an explosion, a fire!
- Then why is Diana intact? - Vitaly asked him. - She wasn’t even burned! What if she was simply thrown out of the plane at the moment of impact? And she was alive until she fell to the ground...
- Please don't think about it! - Maya begged.
- Vitaly! - Helmut only now became truly afraid for Kaloev.
Until now, it seemed to him that Vitaly was holding up well, but what was really going on in his head if he thought about this?
At this altitude there is low pressure. If depressurization occurs on an airplane and an oxygen mask is not put on within a few seconds, hypoxia develops and the person simply passes out. Those who did not die during the collision lost consciousness within seconds! - the policeman continued.
Maya saw Vitaly take his mobile phone out of his pocket, open a calculator in it and begin to count something.
“It turns out to be about six minutes,” he said, having finished counting.
They pulled onto a dirt road. To her left were apple and pear orchards, and to her right were green meadows, fenced by a low wooden fence, behind which two dozen black shaggy cows grazed.
The management of the Swiss air traffic control company Skyguide (which monitored the airspace in the collision zone) tried to evade responsibility by blaming Russian pilots for the incident. Official apologies were made to the relatives of the victims and the Russian authorities only in 2004 (pictured is Alain Rossier, who headed the company)
Torn beads
The owner of the farm led them to the place where Diana was found. The girl, she said, was lying under a tree. The branches of the mighty alder scratched his face, but softened the fall, and the child’s body was almost unharmed. Vitaly knelt down, lay down on the grass crushed by Diana’s body and began to cry. Maya, Michael and Helmut stepped aside, deciding that Vitaly needed to be alone. A few minutes later they heard him scream.
I found her beads! - shouted Kaloev.
Vitaly looked crazy. He cried and laughed at the same time, and then showed Maya three mother-of-pearl beads on his palm:
- I gave them to Diana last year.
Kaloev knelt down again and began to rummage through the grass with his hands.
- Do you want me to help you? - Maya asked.
- No need! Don't come near! Me myself.
At less than 50 years old, he had everything a man could dream of: a beautiful wife, a son, a daughter, and a favorite job. Everything disappeared in an instant, turning further existence into an endless nightmare.
Tolerant Europe did not want to understand the grief of this man, and then, when the irreparable happened, it began to cry: “Savage! Barbarian! Madman from Russia!
Guardians of universal human values demanded severe punishment for him, not realizing that nothing could be more terrible than what had already happened to him.
The Kaloev family: happiness for four
Vitaly Kaloev born in Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz) on January 15, 1956. His father worked as a school teacher, his mother as a kindergarten teacher. As the youngest child in the family, Vitaly learned to read early and spent a lot of time reading books.
At school he got straight A's, but after graduation he entered a construction college rather than college. He never lost his higher education: after serving in the army, he entered the Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering.
While I was studying at the university, I managed to work as a foreman at a construction site, then began working in one of the first construction cooperatives.
At the age of 25, Vitaly married Svetlana. The young wife was a girl with character: after graduating from university, she made a successful career in a bank, and then became director of finance in a large company.
At the end of 1991, a son was born, who was named Bones. Like any Caucasian man, Vitaly was proud of his heir and had high hopes for him. The boy loved his father very much and lived up to his expectations: like Vitaly, he studied well at school and was interested in paleontology and astronautics.
In 1998, the Kaloevs had a daughter, who was named Diana. Vitaly adored his little princess, but it so happened that he had to spend a lot of time away from his family.
Kaloev worked in the construction department, but the financial crisis of 1998 hit the construction sector hard. In 1999, he managed to find work abroad, in Spain. Under the contract, he went to work in Barcelona.
Audience Award at the Vivat Cinema of Russia festival, held in St. Petersburg. Sarik Andreasyan’s drama “Unforgiven” received. The prototype of the main character of the film is Vitaly Kaloev, whose entire family died in a plane crash over Lake Constance
The film will be released soon pic.twitter.com/HZM5Nhg2pf
— Agent VVP (@DM55283) May 25, 2018
Additional flight
By the summer of 2002, he had not seen his family for nine months. Vitaly was in a hurry to finish work on the cottage as soon as possible and hand it over to the customer, because after that Svetlana and the children were supposed to fly to him in Barcelona.
What happened next was a fateful coincidence. Svetlana Kaloeva with her son and daughter were flying to Barcelona with a transfer in Moscow. The weather was bad, and by the time they reached the Russian capital, their flight to Spain had already departed. There were no tickets for other flights, and the family was stuck at Sheremetyevo airport for several hours.
And suddenly - luck! Svetlana was offered three tickets for a charter flight operated by Bashkir Airlines.
This flight should not have been on the schedule. It also arose due to being late. A group of schoolchildren from Bashkiria, students of a UNESCO specialized school, as well as winners of various Olympiads, were on their way to Spain on vacation. They missed their flight and the airline arranged an extra flight to take them to Barcelona. Schoolchildren and accompanying persons did not occupy the entire salon, and tickets for the empty seats were offered to everyone. Three of them were bought by the Kaloyevs.
Vitaly, having learned that Svetlana was leaving Moscow after all, sighed with relief. There were only a few hours left before the meeting.
Torn Necklace
The flight did not arrive in Barcelona. Instead, news came about a collision of two planes in the skies over Lake Constance.
Having learned about the incident, Kaloev flew first to Zurich and then to Uberlingen, from where he reached the scene of the disaster.
He was the first of the relatives of the Bashkir Airlines Tu-154 passengers to reach the crash site. The police did not want to let him through the cordon, but he told them that his wife, son and daughter were on the plane. The law enforcement officers silently parted.
The plane broke up in mid-air and the bodies of the victims were scattered over a large area. The volunteers couldn’t stand it, the professional rescuers couldn’t stand it, and Vitaly continued to look for his relatives.
On the first day of his search, he came across his daughter’s torn necklace, and then Diana herself. Unlike most of the dead, the girl’s body was not mutilated; she seemed to be sleeping.
He did not go crazy at that moment and continued his search. The mutilated bodies of Svetlana and Kostya were found only on the tenth day of the search.
Vitaly Kaloev's family was no longer there.
“The only consolation is visiting their graves every day.”
He buried them in Vladikavkaz, erecting an amazingly beautiful monument on their grave, into which he poured all his soul and talent.
On a website created in memory of the victims of the disaster, he wrote: “My life stopped on this tragic date of 07/01/2002. I have only memories left to live on. The only consolation is a daily visit to their graves in the cemetery in Vladikavkaz, where they are buried.”
He has nothing left. There was only a desire to get an answer: why did the disaster happen and who is to blame for it?
A Tu-154 of Bashkir Airlines and a cargo Boeing-757 of DHL airlines collided almost at a right angle. In the last seconds, the pilots saw each other in the night sky and did their best to tilt the controls, trying to avoid meeting. But it was too late.
The Boeing's vertical tail fin cut the Tu-154 in half. No one on board the Russian plane had a chance to survive. The crew of the Boeing cargo plane tried to fight, but the plane, which had lost its stabilizer, lost control and also crashed to the ground.
A total of 71 people died in the disaster.
First channel
First channel
First channel
They wanted to make the dead pilots “scapegoats”
The collision occurred in the area of responsibility of dispatchers of the private Swiss company Skyguide. That night some of the equipment in the control room was not working, one of the two dispatchers went to lunch and only the 34-year-old was left at the control panel Peter Nielsen, which worked on two terminals at once.
Nielsen did not immediately see the dangerous approach of the Tu-154 and Boeing. When he realized that the situation was becoming critical, he ordered the Russian pilots to descend.
On board the Tu-154 there was a TCAS system, responsible for automatically warning of dangerous approaches. Unlike the controller, TCAS gave a signal to climb. However, the Tu-154 crew relied on instructions according to which priority was given to the dispatcher's commands.
At the same time, Boeing, following TCAS instructions, also began to descend. Nielsen's last fatal mistake was that he informed the Tu-154 crew about an aircraft from the right, while the Boeing was approaching from the left.
The management of Skyguide categorically did not want to admit guilt. They decided to make the dead Russian pilots “scapegoats”, accusing them of ignorance of the language and low level of aviation training.
But the investigation commission admitted: the Tu-154 crew acted exactly according to instructions. The fact that the instructions turned out to be imperfect cannot be blamed on the pilots. But the mistakes and violations made by Skyguide and dispatcher Nielsen are beyond doubt.
"The Man with the Black Beard"
The relatives of the victims found themselves in a terrifying situation. Skyguide's lawyers offered them to abandon their claims in exchange for payment of 40 to 60 thousand francs, depending on the extent of the damage. At the same time, Skyguide, according to experts, could count on insurance payments that would allow it to remain in the black after settlements with relatives.
Vitaly Kaloev did not need money. He wanted these respectable gentlemen in suits to admit their guilt and apologize in a humane way.
A year after the disaster, he met with the head of Skyguide Alain Rossier. He asked him all the same questions: about the fault of the dispatcher, about the fault of the company. According to Kaloyev, Rossier admitted that the dispatcher could have prevented the disaster. Later, Skyguide employees will say that their boss was terribly scared by the “man with a black beard.”
In November 2003, Vitaly Kaloev received a dry official letter in which he was informed that Skyguide saw no reason to apologize.
Skyguide representatives sent Peter Nielsen to “psychological rehabilitation”, trying to protect him from the attention of the press and the relatives of the victims.
But Vitaly Kaloev managed to find out where this man lives. On February 24, 2004, he appeared on the threshold of Nielsen’s house in Kloten, Switzerland.
Fatal meeting
Peter Nielsen had a wife and three children, and he probably could understand Vitaly’s grief. But Nielsen was completely unprepared for the visit of the “man with a black beard,” who handed him photographs of the dead family.
Did the dispatcher understand what the man who had lost everything through his fault was telling him? In any case, he did not want to talk to Kaloev.
According to Vitaly, he asked if Nilsen wanted to apologize, but he hit him on the arm and tried to leave.
Peter Nielsen's wife jumped out to hear the noise and found her husband on the ground in a pool of blood. Doctors counted 12 stab wounds on the dispatcher. The examination established that they were inflicted with a folding knife. Nielsen died at the scene.
Vitaly Kaloyev was detained at the hotel. He told the police that he did not remember what happened, but from what he was told, he could have killed Peter Nielsen.
Time does not heal
At the trial, Vitaly repeated: this would not have happened if those responsible for the disaster had simply apologized to him and other relatives of the victims.
On October 26, 2005, Kaloev was found guilty by the Supreme Court of the Canton of Zurich and sentenced to eight years in prison.
In September 2007, a verdict was announced in the case of eight Skyguide employees accused of violations leading to the disaster over Lake Constance. Of the eight defendants in the case, four were acquitted. Of the remaining four, three were sentenced to suspended imprisonment, one to a fine.
In November 2007, Vitaly Kaloev was released early for good behavior. A few days later he returned to North Ossetia. Soon he took the post of Deputy Minister of Construction and Architecture.
In January 2016, Kaloev retired.
13 years after the disaster that ruined his life forever, Vitaly married a second time. He did not have children in his new family.
He says that time does not heal, that he considers life lived in vain, because he could not save his family.
In the place where the plane wreckage fell, today there is a monument: the scattered pearls of a torn necklace...
In April, the film “Aftermath” will be released with Arnold Schwarzenegger about the Russian Vitaly Kaloyev, whose family died in a plane crash over Lake Constance in 2002. 478 days after the tragedy, Vitaly Kaloev killed an air traffic controller, because of whose mistake his wife and two children died.
In July 2002, Russian architect Vitaly Kaloev worked in Spain. He completed the construction of a cottage near Barcelona, handed over the object to the customer and waited for his family, whom he had not seen for nine months. Svetlana and her children, 11-year-old son Konstantin and 4-year-old daughter Diana, could not buy a plane ticket. And only three hours before departure at the airport she was offered last-minute tickets on board that same plane.
WikipediaAt this point, the Tu-154 pilots had not yet seen the Boeing approaching from the left, but were prepared for the fact that they would have to perform a maneuver to diverge from it. Therefore, they began to descend immediately after receiving the dispatcher's command (in fact, even before it was completed). However, immediately after this, a command from the automatic proximity warning system (TCAS) sounded in the cockpit, informing about the need to gain altitude. At the same time, the pilots of flight 611 received instructions from the same system to descend.
One of the crew members drew the attention of the others to the TCAS command, and he was told that the controller had given the command to descend. Because of this, no one confirmed receipt of the command (although the plane was already descending). A few seconds later, Nielsen repeated the command, this time its receipt was immediately confirmed. At the same time, he mistakenly reported incorrect information about another aircraft, saying that it was to the right of the Tu-154. As subsequent flight recorder transcripts revealed, some of the pilots of Flight 2937 were misled by this message and may have believed that there was another aircraft not visible on the TCAS screen. The Tu-154 continued to descend following instructions from the controller rather than TCAS. None of the pilots informed the dispatcher about the contradiction in the received commands.
At the same time, Flight 611 was descending in compliance with TCAS instructions. As soon as possible, the pilots reported this to Nielsen. The controller did not hear this message due to the fact that another aircraft simultaneously contacted him on a different frequency.
In the last seconds, the pilots of both planes saw each other and tried to prevent a collision by completely deflecting the controls, but this did not help.
The police did not want to let Vitaly into the crash site, but when he explained that his wife and children were there, they let him in. According to Vitaly, his daughter Diana was found three kilometers from the plane crash site. Kaloev himself participated in the search work and first found Diana’s torn beads, and then her body.
At ten in the morning I was at the scene of the tragedy. 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.
On February 22, 2004, his attempt to talk to air traffic controller Peter Nielsen ended in the murder of the air traffic controller on the threshold of his own home in the Swiss town of Kloten: twelve blows with a pocketknife.
I knocked. Nielsen left. 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 to him with the photographs a second time and said in Spanish: “Look!” He slapped me on the hand and the pictures flew off. And away we go.
Kaloyev was released early - in November 2008. When leaving prison, the first thing Vitaly Kaloev said was: “Why do I need this freedom now?”
Radio Liberty
Vitaly Kaloev 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. Thirteen years after the tragedy, Vitaly Kaloev got married.
I think that I lived my life in vain: I could not save my family. What depended on me is the second question,” admitted Vitaly Kaloev. - You can’t learn to live after this... I still haven’t recovered. But there is no need to give up. If you need to cry, cry, but it’s better to do it alone: no one saw me with tears, I didn’t show them anywhere. Maybe, maybe on the very first day. We must live with the destiny that is destined for us. Live and help people.
Youtube
Trailer for the film “Consequences”
- Immediately after the disaster, the Swiss company Skyguide placed all the blame on the Russian pilots, who, in its opinion, poorly understood the dispatcher’s instructions in English. 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 the dispatchers were to blame for the collision. Only after the publication of the report did Skyguide admit its mistakes, and two years after the disaster, its director Alain Rossier apologized to the families of the victims.
- According to Kaloev, the creators of the film “Consequences” did not consult with him; he himself has not seen the film, but plans to watch it. “They took it off and took it off. What is there to react? The main thing is that nothing is distorted. Otherwise there will be action with a chase. I wasn't hiding from anyone. He came openly and left openly,” Kaloev said.
In 2016, Vitaly Kaloev was detained at Munich airport. He was flying to participate in mourning events on the occasion of the death of a Tu-154 aircraft over Lake Constance on July 2, 2002. It turned out that the Swiss side protested against allowing Kaloyev to attend the ceremony.
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