“I didn’t take off my dark glasses, and then I sat in the hall for a long time”

Vitaly Kaloev came to the film festival from neighboring Vladikavkaz to watch a film about himself. Having lost his loved ones in 2002 - his wife and two children - in a plane crash, he committed lynching, killing a Swiss dispatcher, through whose fault the tragedy occurred and who never apologized. He was also the father of three children. An act of vengeance has taken place. Kaloev remained unforgiven, just as he himself could not forgive.

Vitaliy Kaloev came to the show not alone, but with his brother, who also became the hero of the painting "Unforgiven" by Sarik Andreasyan, and other relatives. The Ossetian delegation that arrived at the Open Festival of Popular Film Genres was so large that they had to give up their seats so that everyone could sit side by side. We met with Vitaly Konstantinovich during breakfast, but few dared to approach him, and if they did, the conversation was laconic. Kaloev did not allow himself to be photographed, quickly passed by. Relatives said that Vitaly Konstantinovich lives on the outskirts of Vladikavkaz, next to the cemetery where his relatives rest, and it was necessary to take him out of there by force every time.

Emotions ran high. I have never seen a movie through the eyes of another person. What real hero in the hall and together with us re-experiencing the tragedy, produced an incomparable effect. The brother of Vitaly Kaloev wiped away a tear, braced himself with his last strength. Vitaly himself did not shoot sunglasses until the lights went out, and sat as if frozen, and then did not leave the hall for a long time until the audience left. The excited Sarik Andreasyan was not himself, burst into tears in anticipation of the reaction of his hero. He himself is a native of Yerevan, and people from the Caucasus, according to him, if something is wrong, they will tell right away. “The relatives were crying. One of them came up after the show: let's go with us. In the room where we went, there were Vitaly Kaloev and his relatives. They were silent. I said: sorry if something is wrong. And I heard in response: let all the children go to heaven, if it exists. We were sitting at the same table, and Vitaly Konstantinovich said: this is not a film, this is a story. And they let me go. Them too."

Getting to work, Andreasyan had a 15-minute meeting with Kaloev, handed him the script, which was never read - he did not want to plunge back into the terrible days. If Kaloev had told him “no”, he would not have taken off. But I heard the following: “I am not holding your hand. You can do whatever you want. I saw a movie with Schwarzenegger. (“Consequences” by British director Elliott Lester, where Arnold Schwarzenegger played Roman Melnik, who lost his loved ones in a plane crash, the prototype of which was Kaloev, he refused to meet with the authors of this film. - S.Kh.) Shame on them? What is the hut on the screen? Do you know what kind of house I have? I have brick house". But the film crew did not have a chance to visit it. I had to study the interiors from the chronicle, fragments of recordings that appeared on the air during the days of the double tragedy. So on the screen - a collective image of the Caucasian house. Kaloev's relatives asked after the show: “Were you at his house? Everything has been recreated."

Surely Dmitry Nagiyev, who played the main character, has eastern roots, judging by his last name and facial features. For the sake of the role, I had to lose 8 kg, change the color of my eyes. Andreasyan does not justify Kaloev's act, but as a man and father he understands: “He did not go to kill. Something unconscious has happened. This is the meeting of two civilizations. If the dispatcher had apologized on the threshold of the house, everything would have been different. The human factor comes first only in the post-Soviet space. Our soul comes first. Europeans are different, which is why they talk about compensation for the families of the victims when they need an apology. This is history little man capable of changing the course of things. The words of our hero “what would you do if you saw children in a coffin?” we took from an interview with brother Kaloev. “I quarreled with God” - the words of Vitaly Konstantinovich himself sound in the picture, hearing which his brother closed his eyes while watching. The time for lynching has passed, but before today in the Caucasus, the tradition of "an eye for an eye" exists. In our country, Vitaly would have been given for sure life imprisonment for the murder of a man, and in Europe they were sentenced to 14 years, but given eight, and then two years later they were released, given the circumstances of the case.

The history of the birth of each competition film is full of strong experiences. Eduard Novikov's Yakut "Tsar Bird", noted for directing, has been created 12 years since the director read the story of his fellow countryman. Then he prepared for a long time, but technically he could not carry out his project. No one gave money, referring to the fact that the film was non-commercial. According to a member of the jury - director Alexander Proshkin, this is the third Yakut film, which he has been awarding a prize over the past two years. "Burn!" Kirilla Pletneva, who angered critics for the very fact of the fraternization of prisoners and guards, was, oddly enough, unanimously recognized by the jury the best picture and received the Grand Prix.

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The fate of the architect Vitaly Kaloev from Ossetia was tragic: he lost his entire family in a plane crash. His wife and two children were killed. They flew by plane to Spain, where Vitaly Kaloev worked at that time.

The architect himself blamed the incident on the Swiss dispatcher, whom he then killed. The story happened 16 years ago, and now Vitaly got married a second time.

Vitaliy Kaloev married a second time, photo: about family

In 1991, Kaloev married Svetlana Pushkinovna Gagieva (born 1958).

Svetlana graduated in 1983 from the Faculty of Economics of SOGU with a degree in economics. She made a career, going from an ordinary bank employee to the head of a department. For some time she worked as a director commercial bank Adamon Bank.

At the time of the meeting with Kaloev and until the disaster, Svetlana worked as an economist and deputy director for finance at the Daryal brewery.

In marriage, the Kaloevs had two children - son Konstantin (born November 19, 1991 in Vladikavkaz, was named after his paternal grandfather) and daughter Diana (born March 7, 1998 in the same place, the name was chosen by Konstantin). Konstantin studied at the Vladikavkaz school number 5, where he managed to finish five classes. He was fond of paleontology and astronautics.

Vitaliy Kaloev married a second time, photo: tragedy of 2002

By July 2002, Kaloev had been working in Spain for two years. He completed the construction of a cottage near Barcelona, ​​handed over the object to the customer and was waiting for his family, whom he had not seen for nine months.

By that time, Svetlana and her children had already arrived in Moscow, but she could not buy a plane ticket in any way, and only three hours before departure at the airport she was offered “burning” tickets on board the same Bashkir Airlines plane, which later crashed in the sky above lake constance.

The collision over Lake Constance is a major aviation accident that occurred on July 1, 2002.

The Tu-154M airliner of the Bashkir Airlines (BAL) operating the BTC 2937 flight on the Moscow-Barcelona route collided in the air with a DHL cargo Boeing 757-200PF aircraft on the DHX 611 flight on the Bahrain-Bergamo-Brussels route.

The collision took place near small townÜberlingen near Lake Constance (Germany). All 71 people on board both aircraft died - 2 on the Boeing (both pilots) and 69 on the Tu-154 (9 crew members and 60 passengers, including 52 children).

Despite the fact that both aircraft were over the territory of Germany, the control air traffic in this place was carried out by the private Swiss company "Skyguide".

At 21:35:32 BTC 2937 and DHX 611 collided almost at a right angle at 10634 meters (FL350). The vertical tail stabilizer of the Boeing hit the fuselage of the Tu-154 and broke it in half. Falling, the Tu-154 fell apart in the air into four parts that fell in the vicinity of Überlingen. The Boeing, which lost its stabilizer, lost control and, having lost both engines during the fall, at 21:37 crashed to the ground 7 kilometers from the Tu-154 and completely collapsed.

All on board both aircraft (69 people on the Tu-154 and 2 on the Boeing) died. Despite the fact that some fragments of both liners fell on residential buildings (in their courtyards), no one died on the ground ...

On July 2, 2002, having learned about the incident, Kaloev immediately flew from Barcelona to Zurich, and from there to Germany to Uberlingen, where the disaster occurred. At first, the police did not want to let Vitaly to the crash site, but when he explained that his wife and children were there, they let him through.

According to Vitaly, his daughter Diana was found three kilometers from the crash site. According to the channel documentary national geographic Kaloev himself participated in the search work and first found Diana's torn beads, and then her body.

All three were buried in Vladikavkaz.

Vitaliy Kaloev married a second time, photo: prison sentence

In the summer of 2003, Kaloev, together with Yulia Fedotova, the mother of another girl who died in a plane crash, came to the Skyguide airline.

According to company employees, during the funeral ceremony in Überlingen, dedicated to the anniversary of the plane crash, "one of the relatives - a man with a black beard" - behaved very "excitedly" and terribly frightened the head of the company, Allen Rosier. After that, this person allegedly arrived at the Skyguide office, where, talking with the company's employees, he asked several times: “Is the dispatcher to blame for what happened?” and sought a meeting with Peter Nielsen, who was at the control room that evening.

On February 24, 2004, Peter Nielsen was killed. The murder took place on the threshold of Nielsen's house in the presence of his wife and three children. The main version of the murder, considered by the Swiss police, was Kaloev's revenge. Kaloev himself did not admit his guilt, but he did not deny it either - when testifying, he stated that he only remembered that he had come to Nielsen, showed him photographs of his family and demanded to apologize. Nielsen hit Kaloev on the arm and knocked out the photographs, after which Kaloev, in his words, had a memory failure.

Kaloev repeated that he did not repent of his deed at all. “Peter Nielsen was rewarded for his behavior. In addition to him, the director of SkyGuide, Alain Rossier, should also be rewarded, ”said Kaloev.

On November 8, 2007, by a court decision, he was released for exemplary behavior after serving part of the term. On November 13, Kaloev arrived in North Ossetia, where he was warmly welcomed at the airport.

Vitaliy Kaloev married a second time, photo: today

In North Ossetia, Kaloev was appointed Deputy Minister of Architecture and Construction Policy of the Republic.

On the day of his sixtieth birthday, he retired, a few days before that he was awarded the medal "For the Glory of Ossetia."

In 2014, Vitaly married a second time. This was reported to journalists by Taimuraz Mansurov, former head North Ossetia and a friend of Kaloev, but refused to specify the details: “This is not a topic for discussion with us. Wife - good woman takes care of him. They are together. What happens next is none of my business. He lives in the same house as before the tragedy.”

Vitaliy Kaloev did not talk about his wife, but he did not hide anything either. His new darling name is Irina, and the wedding took place according to the Ossetian rite. Kaloev explained his choice not to go to the registry office by the fact that in the registry office you only get a piece of paper. She means nothing to him. And so relatives come, everyone knows. Vitaly said that he wanted to start a family and asked Irina, she agreed.

Even before the ceremony itself, it is necessary to collect a ransom for the bride, and the Ossetian wedding itself takes place immediately both in the house of the bride and in the house of the groom. Usually this is a mass celebration with the participation of more than 200 people, acquaintances, friends and relatives. Fun always reigns at such a celebration, any uninvited neighbor or acquaintance can come to it, and they have no right to refuse him. At the celebration, you can always see a large table with food and sweets. It has also become a tradition to have a wild boar on holiday table, but three pies remain the most important component, which symbolize water, sun and sky.

In the new film "Unforgiven", the story of Vital Kaloev is going to be shown more realistically and listen to the remarks of the hero. Recall that now he lives in North Ossetia, he was released from prison in 2007, ahead of schedule. As he says, the pain of the tragedy has not gone anywhere. She just blunted, expressed not so brightly. In order to reliably recreate the events shown in the film, the director personally met with Vitaly, and Dmitry Nagiev played the main character.

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Vitaly Konstantinovich Kaloev. Born on January 15, 1956 in Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz). The killer of air traffic controller Peter Nielsen, responsible for the death of the Kaloev family in a plane crash over Lake Constance on July 1, 2002.

Vitaly Kaloev was born in 1956 in Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz) into a family of teachers.

Father was a school teacher Ossetian language, mother - teacher in kindergarten.

Was youngest child family, had two brothers and three sisters.

Graduated with honors high school. He studied at the construction college, served in the army. After being transferred to the reserve, he entered the architectural and construction department of the North Caucasian Mining and Metallurgical Institute. In parallel, he worked as a foreman at a construction site.

After graduating from the institute, he received the specialty of an architect. He took part in the construction of the Sputnik military camp near Vladikavkaz, intended for the residence of Soviet officers, whose units were withdrawn from the GDR.

In the perestroika years of the 1980s, Kaloev assembled a building cooperative.

Until 1999, Kaloev was the head of the construction department in Vladikavkaz.

In 1999, he signed a contract with a construction company and left for Spain, where he worked as an architect - he designed houses for immigrants from Ossetia.

In 1991, Kaloev married Svetlana Pushkinovna Gagieva (born 1958). Svetlana graduated in 1983 from the Faculty of Economics of SOGU with a degree in economics. She made a career, going from an ordinary bank employee to the head of a department. For some time she worked as a director of the commercial bank "Adamon Bank". At the time of the meeting with Kaloev and until the disaster, Svetlana worked as an economist and deputy director for finance at the Daryal brewery.

In marriage, the Kaloevs had two children - son Konstantin (born November 19, 1991 in Vladikavkaz, was named after his paternal grandfather) and daughter Diana (born March 7, 1998 in the same place, the name was chosen by Konstantin). Konstantin studied at the Vladikavkaz school number 5, where he managed to finish five classes. He was fond of paleontology and astronautics.

The death of the family of Vitaly Kaloev

By July 2002, Kaloev had been working in Spain for two years. He completed the construction of a cottage near Barcelona, ​​handed over the object to the customer and was waiting for his family, whom he had not seen for nine months. By that time, Svetlana and her children had already arrived in Moscow, but she could not buy a plane ticket in any way, and only three hours before departure at the airport she was offered “burning” tickets on board the same Bashkir Airlines plane, which later crashed in the sky above Lake Constance.

Collision over Lake Constance- a major aviation accident that occurred on July 1, 2002.

The Tu-154M airliner of the Bashkir Airlines (BAL) operating the BTC 2937 flight on the Moscow-Barcelona route collided in the air with a DHL cargo Boeing 757-200PF aircraft on the DHX 611 flight on the Bahrain-Bergamo-Brussels route. The collision took place near the small town of Überlingen near Lake Constance (Germany). All 71 people on board both aircraft died - 2 on the Boeing (both pilots) and 69 on the Tu-154 (9 crew members and 60 passengers, including 52 children).

Despite the fact that both aircraft were over German territory, air traffic control in this place was carried out by the private Swiss company Skyguide. The control center in Zurich had only two air traffic controllers on the night shift. Shortly before the collision, one of the controllers went on a break; only a 34-year-old dispatcher remained on duty Peter Nielsen, who was forced to work simultaneously at two terminals, and an assistant.

Part of the control room equipment was turned off, and Nielsen noticed too late that two aircraft that were at the same flight level FL360 (11,000 meters) were dangerously approaching. Less than a minute before the moment when their courses were supposed to cross, he tried to correct the situation and ordered the crew of Flight 2937 to descend.

The Tu-154 pilots had not yet seen the Boeing approaching from the left, but they were ready for the fact that they would have to perform a maneuver to diverge from it. Therefore, they began their descent immediately after receiving the controller's command (in fact, even before it was completed). However, immediately after that, a command from the automatic proximity warning system (TCAS) sounded in the cockpit, informing about the need to climb. Simultaneously, the pilots of Flight 611 received instructions from the same system to descend.

One of the flight 2937 crew members (co-pilot Itkulov) drew the attention of the others to the TCAS command, he was told that the controller had given the command to descend. Because of this, no one confirmed the receipt of the command (although the plane was already descending). A few seconds later, Nilsen repeated the command, this time its receipt was immediately acknowledged. At the same time, he mistakenly reported incorrect information about another aircraft, saying that it was to the right of the Tu-154. As the transcript of the flight recorders later showed, some of the pilots of Flight 2937 were misled by this message and may have thought that there was another aircraft not visible on the TCAS screen. Tu-154 continued to descend, following the instructions of the controller, not TCAS. None of the pilots informed the controller about the contradiction in the received commands.

At the same time, Flight 611 was descending following a TCAS instruction. As soon as possible, the pilots reported this to Nielsen. The controller did not hear this message due to the fact that at the same time another aircraft got in touch with him on a different frequency.

In the last seconds, the pilots of both aircraft saw each other and tried to prevent a collision by fully deflecting the controls, but this did not help. At 21:35:32 BTC 2937 and DHX 611 collided almost at a right angle at 10634 meters (FL350). The vertical tail stabilizer of the Boeing hit the fuselage of the Tu-154 and broke it in half. Falling, the Tu-154 fell apart in the air into four parts that fell in the vicinity of Überlingen. The Boeing, which lost its stabilizer, lost control and, having lost both engines during the fall, at 21:37 crashed to the ground 7 kilometers from the Tu-154 and completely collapsed. All on board both aircraft (69 people on the Tu-154 and 2 on the Boeing) died. Despite the fact that some fragments of both liners fell on residential buildings (in their yards), no one died on the ground ...

On July 2, 2002, having learned about the incident, Kaloev immediately flew from Barcelona to Zurich, and from there to Germany to Überlingen, where the disaster occurred. At first, the police did not want to let Vitaly to the crash site, but when he explained that his wife and children were there, they let him through.

According to Vitaly, his daughter Diana was found three kilometers from the crash site. According to the National Geographic Channel documentary, Kaloev himself participated in search operations and found Diana's torn beads first, and then her body.

All three were buried in Vladikavkaz.

The murder of dispatcher Peter Nielsen by Vitaliy Kaloev

In the summer of 2003, Kaloev, together with Yulia Fedotova, the mother of another girl who died in a plane crash, came to the Skyguide airline. According to company employees, during the mourning ceremony in Überlingen, dedicated to the anniversary of the plane crash, "one of the relatives - a man with a black beard" - behaved very "excitedly" and terribly frightened the head of the company, Allen Rosier. After that, this person allegedly arrived at the Skyguide office, where, talking with the company's employees, he asked several times: “Is the dispatcher to blame for what happened?” and sought a meeting with Peter Nielsen, who was at the control room that evening.

On February 24, 2004, Peter Nielsen was killed. The murder took place on the threshold of Nielsen's house in the presence of his wife and three children. The main version of the murder, considered by the Swiss police, was Kaloev's revenge. Kaloev himself did not admit his guilt, but he did not deny it either - when testifying, he stated that he only remembered that he had come to Nielsen, showed him photographs of his family and demanded to apologize. Nielsen hit Kaloev on the arm and knocked out the photographs, after which Kaloev, in his words, had a memory failure.

Vitaliy Kaloev on the circumstances of Nielsen's murder:

In an interview with reporters, Kaloev spoke about how and why he killed dispatcher Nielsen.

"I knocked. Nielsen came out. At first I gestured to him to invite me into the house. But he slammed the door. I called again and said to him:" Ich bin Russland "(" I am Russia "). I remember these words from school "He didn't say anything. I took out photographs showing 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, resentment I took it. Even my eyes filled with tears. I held out my hand to him with the photographs for the second time and said in Spanish: “Look!” He slapped me on the arm ... The pictures flew ... And then it started, "Kaloev said.

“I don’t remember already. I lost my temper. I lost my mind when the photos fell ... I don’t remember what I was doing,” he said. Kaloev did not deny that he killed the dispatcher, but he does not admit his guilt either: he stubbornly repeats that he was in a state of passion and does not remember anything.

“A year ago I told that I went to Nielsen, talked to him, but I don’t remember what happened next. I didn’t hide anything. And according to the evidence that they show me, it turns out that I killed him. There are pieces of clothing on my clothes Nielsen, traces of blood and something else. His blood is also on the knife. They didn’t say anything about my fingerprints. But some particles of my clothes were found in the knife. I don’t know how it really happened, "Kaloev said.

Kaloev repeated that he did not repent of his deed at all. "Peter Nielsen was rewarded for his behavior. In addition to him, SkyGuide director Alain Rossier should also be rewarded," said Kaloev.

“How should I feel sorry for him? You see, it didn’t make me feel any better because he died. My children didn’t return,” he noted.

Kaloev refused to recognize the Swiss court. “I told them so: the Swiss court means nothing to me. The court of my children is higher for me. If they could, they would say that I really loved them, that I didn’t leave them, didn’t allow them to disappear without a trace ", - concluded Kaloev.

On October 26, 2005, Kaloev was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. On November 8, 2007, by a court decision, he was released for exemplary behavior after serving part of the term. On November 13, Kaloev arrived in North Ossetia, where he was warmly welcomed at the airport.

According to a number Russian media, August 9, 2008, on the second day of the war in South Ossetia, Vitaly Kaloev was seen among the militias in Java. His brother later confirmed that Vitaly was indeed in South Ossetia at the time, but that his presence was connected with the construction of the Zaramag hydroelectric power station, and that he returned home that same night.

In North Ossetia, Kaloev was appointed Deputy Minister of Architecture and Construction Policy of the Republic. On the day of his sixtieth birthday, he retired, a few days before that he was awarded the medal "For the Glory of Ossetia."

Vitaliy Kaloev in the program "Live"

Vitaliy Kaloev now:

In 2014, Vitaly married a second time, his wife's name is Irina. Taimuraz Mansurov, the former head of North Ossetia and a friend of Kaloev, told reporters about this. But he refused to specify the details: "This is not a topic for discussion with us. My wife is a good woman, she takes care of him. They are together. Further - it's none of my business. He lives in the same house as before the tragedy."

On December 25, 2018, it became known that Vitaly Kaloev became the father of twins. He had a son and a daughter. This was announced on Facebook by the author of the biographical book Kaloev Ksenia Kaspari. “Yes, four hours ago, Irina gave birth to twins - a son and a daughter. It was a surprise for me that it would be twins. My wife and I have not yet decided how to name the children. There are options, but we'll see," Kaloev said.

The image of Vitaliy Kaloev in the cinema:

Based on the events with the participation of Vitaliy Kaloev, a film was made "Consequences" (Aftermath). He played the role of Kaloev. The film was directed by Elliott Lester. The film also stars Scoot McNairy, Maggie Grace and Martin Donovan.

In 2017, director Sarik Andreasyan made a film in which he played the role of Kaloev.

Director Sarik Andreasyan noted: “Our film is about the fact that parents should not bury their children. As a father, I know very well what love for a family is - it was with this feeling that I made films. I wanted to pay tribute to this whole story, its main character. Our film is not just about a person - it is about history, about loss and about loneliness.

American rock band Delta Spirit recorded the song "Ballad of Vitaly" ("The Ballad of Vitaly"), which is the final piece in their album "History from Below".

German futurepop band Edge of Dawn hints at the story of Vitaliy Kaloev in their song "The Flight (Lux)" ("Flight (Lux)").


15 years ago, Vitaliy Kaloev lost his entire family in a plane crash over Lake Constance. Subsequently, he killed an air traffic controller on duty at the time of the collision. Xenia Kaspari, author of a documentary about these tragic events, tells in her book how the murder happened and whether it was accidental or deliberate. You will learn more about the motives of the widower who has already served his sentence from the excerpt, exclusively provided to our portal by the EKSMO publishing house.

May 3, 2017 · Text: Xenia Kaspari, excerpt from the novel "Collision", published with abridgements

The documentary novel Collision, written with the direct participation of its protagonist Vitaly Kaloev, tells about a plane crash over Lake Constance, which is considered the most terrible page in the history of domestic aviation.

On July 2, 2002, in the sky over the German city of Überlingen, a DHL cargo Boeing and a Bashkir Airlines passenger plane, which was flying a charter flight from Moscow to Barcelona, ​​collided. Most of the passengers on the crashed TU-154 were children. Vitaliy Kaloev lost his wife Svetlana and two children in this disaster - 10-year-old Kostya and 4-year-old Diana. He is the only one of all the relatives of the dead who will take part in search operation at the crash site. And then, without waiting for the results of the investigation, he will kill the dispatcher who controlled the airspace during the tragedy.

On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the plane crash over Lake Constance, the Eksmo publishing house published a documentary novel dedicated to the tragedy

“The police escort was Helmut Sontheimer. In his car, they quickly crossed the road, passing all the checkpoints without stopping. The wreckage was seen from afar. The Tupolev's tail, sunk 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 officers and experts in protective suits. Bodies were removed from the wreckage.

Vitaly, I'm sorry, but this cannot be done. - Helmut (policeman, - approx. site) stopped Kaloev, who tried to enter the plane for 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 operational services! Please! I'll have to handcuff you!

Svetlana, wife of Vitaly Kaloev, with her daughter Diana (spring 1999)

Vitaly stood at the wreckage until all the remains found there were taken out. Every time a stretcher-carrying policeman emerged from the darkness of the saloon, he shuddered, but forced himself to watch. Some of the bodies were so disfigured that a mere glance was not enough, and he ran after the stretcher until he was completely sure that this was not his child. The bodies and their fragments were piled in a clearing, where other policemen put them in bags and carried them to a truck parked on the side of the road.

Vitaly, do you want me to read a prayer? - The pastor saw that Kaloev was shaking from barely contained tears.
The priest wanted to come closer and hug Vitaly, but he felt that he was in complete disarray and did not at all yearn for this, but on the contrary.

Prayer?! - Kaloev shouted to him in response. “After all this,” he pointed to the bodies, “do you still believe in God?! If he is, your God, then why did he allow this?! Vitaly breathed heavily, holding back anger and tears.

Six minutes to Earth

[…] The expert asked Vitaly standard questions in this case: dates of birth, names, special signs, what they were wearing. In case a DNA test was required, a saliva sample was taken.
- And yet, - the expert, obviously shy, lowered his eyes, - we have photographs of already discovered bodies. If you are ready...
He handed Kaloev a pack of photographs. Vitaly looked through the first two, and looking at the third, he suddenly shouted:
- Diana! My Diana!

He heard his voice as if from a distance. Terrible, hysterical cry of a stranger to him. Vitaliy was blinded by welling tears, the world swam before his eyes. He lost control of himself, the soul seemed to come out of him, breaking ribs, tearing flesh. Pain permeated everything. Just one continuous pain!

Maya (translator, - approx. site) hugged Vitaly, trying to calm him down, 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 pulled her away from Vitaly and led her out into the fresh air. There, she was examined by the ambulance doctors who were on duty at the headquarters. When they returned back, Kaloev had already pulled himself together.

Maya, tell them I want to see my daughter!

Kostya and Diana near a newly planted cherry tree in the courtyard of the Kaloevs' house (spring 2001)

Helmut foresaw this request and was afraid of it. The place where the bodies were kept was carefully concealed. In Überlingen and its environs there was not a single mortuary designed for such a number of bodies. And the remains were temporarily taken to the Goldbach galleries. They began to be built in the autumn of 1944 after a series of intensive bombardments of Friedrichshafen. Especially for this, a “branch” of Dachau was opened in the vicinity of Überlingen, where more than 800 prisoners of war were transferred. They were mostly Poles and Russians. They worked around the clock. In less than seven months, a tunnel four kilometers long was dug inside the rock. It cost the lives of two hundred prisoners.

And now, half a century later, the bunker, which was built for the Nazis by Soviet prisoners of war, suddenly became a temporary "refuge" for 52 dead Russian children. Understanding this terrible irony of fate, the Germans kept in the strictest confidence where they had to store the bodies.

Vitaly, - Helmut suddenly realized that he was talking to this unfortunate Russian, like a child, - you know, this is forbidden ...
- I don't care about their bans! - Kaloev immediately broke out. - Everyone already knows that the bodies are taken to the galleries. You alone make a secret out of it! If I'm not allowed to see my daughter, I'll go there myself!
- I'll talk to management. Maybe they'll make an exception for you again. You already recognized her.

The headquarters took a break to coordinate this decision with the ministry. Helmut offered Vitaly to go to the place where they found Diana. The girl's body was discovered the morning after the disaster on a farm twenty kilometers from Owingen. As Helmut said on the way, Diana was seen by the daughter of the owner of the farm, driving the cows to pasture.

Experts examine the wreckage of the Tu-154 in Owingen

I keep trying to remember the acceleration due to gravity... 9.8? Vitaly asked suddenly.
- Yes, 9.8 meters per second, - confirmed Helmut. - Why are you asking about it?
- I'm trying to calculate how long they flew to the ground before they died ...
- Vitaly, they died at the moment of the collision! - Michael intervened in the conversation (psychologist, - approx. site). - The planes collided, there was an explosion, a fire!
- Then why is Diana whole? - Vitaly asked him. She didn't even get burned! What if she was just thrown out of the plane at the time of the collision? And she was alive until she fell to the ground...
- Please don't think about it! Maya pleaded.
- Vitaly! - Helmut was only now 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 it?

At this altitude, the pressure is low. If a depressurization occurs in an airplane and an oxygen mask is not put on for a few seconds, hypoxia develops, and the person simply turns off. Those who did not die at the time of the collision lost consciousness after a few seconds! the policeman continued.
Maya saw Vitaly take out a mobile phone from his pocket, open a calculator in it and start counting something.
"That's about six minutes," he said when he finished counting.

They drove off onto a dirt road. To her left stretched apple and pear orchards, and to her right, green meadows enclosed by a low wooden fence, behind which two dozen black shaggy cows were grazing.

The leadership of the Swiss air traffic control company Skyguide (which controlled the airspace in the collision zone) tried to evade responsibility by blaming Russian pilots for what happened. An official apology was made to the relatives of the victims and the Russian authorities only in 2004 (pictured is Alain Rossier, who headed the company)

Broken beads

The owner of the farm accompanied them to the place where they found Diana. The girl, she said, was lying under a tree. The branches of a mighty alder scratched the face, but softened the fall, and the child's body was almost not injured. 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.
Vitali looked insane. He cried and laughed at the same time, and then showed Maya three mother-of-pearl beads in his palm:
- I gave them to Diana last year.
Kaloev knelt down again and began to fumble with his hands on the grass.
- Do you want me to help you? Maya asked.
- No need! Don't come! I myself.

As a result of the disaster, 71 people died: two pilots who were on board the cargo Boeing of the German company DHL, as well as the crew and passengers of the Bashkir Airlines flight - a total of 69 people, including 52 children. The tragedy and the story of blood feud that followed it formed the basis of several works of art at once.

How events unfolded on the night of the collision, why most of those who died that night should not have ended up in the sky, and how the investigation proceeded - in the material of Izvestia.

random passengers

The main part of the passengers of the Tu-154 was a group of children from located in Bashkiria specialized school UNESCO for gifted children. All of them received vacation vouchers to Spain for good studies.

This group was supposed to fly the day before, but missed the flight. Bashkir Airlines, at the request of the travel company accompanying the group, urgently organized a charter flight for the group. The airline also offered tickets for this flight to other passengers who were waiting for a flight to Spain - a total of eight tickets were purchased. Three of them were purchased by the Kaloev family - 44-year-old Svetlana flew to Barcelona with her children - four-year-old Diana and 10-year-old Kostya.

In Spain, their father, Vitaly Kaloev, the former head of the construction department in Vladikavkaz, was waiting for them, who in 1999 left for Spain under a contract to work as an architect. The day before, he handed over another project to the customer. Svetlana and her children lived in North Ossetia, they flew to Barcelona via Moscow, where she bought a ticket for a Bashkir Airlines flight.

In addition to the first and second pilots, the crew included the airline's checker - the 1st class pilot, who in this flight had to evaluate the actions of the PIC on board Alexander Gross as part of the standard check procedure. In addition to flight attendants, there were three more airline employees in the cabin of the aircraft: Shamil Rakhmatullin, aircraft engineer Yuri Penzin and flight manager Artem Gusev accompanying the flight.

Late on the evening of July 1, the planes ended up in the airspace over the German Lake Constance - despite the fact that it was the territory of Germany, flight control here was handed over to the private air traffic control company Skyguide, located in Switzerland.

control room

On duty at the control center at that moment was one specialist - 34-year-old Peter Nielsen. The second controller, with the consent of Nielsen, at that moment went on a break, and two control terminals remained in the care of Nielsen and the assistant who remained with him.

In addition, as the investigation subsequently established, part of the control equipment, which should inform the dispatchers about a dangerous approach between aircraft, was under maintenance that night.

When it became clear that the planes were moving on intersecting courses, another dispatcher who worked in Karlsruhe tried to draw the attention of his colleague to the dangerous situation. He tried 11 times to contact Nielsen by phone, but one of telephone lines was also in service, and the spare was out of order. For the same reason, Nielsen himself could not ask Friedrichshafen Airport to take on another, third, delayed flight. Negotiations with the commander of this board a few minutes before the disaster will not allow Nielsen to hear the messages from the Boeing and Tu-154 pilots.

Nielsen himself noticed the approach of two aircraft moving on a collision course too late. He gave the first message to the commander of the Tu-154 demanding to lower the altitude less than a minute before the collision. However, at that time, the TCAS-RA collision warning system had already activated in the cockpit of the second aircraft.

in the cockpit

The TCAS system was created specifically to warn pilots of dangerous approaches in a situation where, for some reason, this was not done by the controller. In order for the system to work, it is necessary that the second plane also has its sensor - after that, each of the liners receives a coordinated signal about the maneuver that must be performed in order to prevent a collision.

According to international rules, all aircraft certified to carry 19 passengers or more must be equipped with the system. TCAS was installed on both the Tu-154 and the German Boeing. But due to the fact that the controller tried to prevent a collision too late, his orders came into conflict with the TCAS commands.

Almost immediately after Nielsen got in touch with the captain of the Bashkir Airlines plane and demanded to descend, TCAS instructed the Russian airliner to begin climbing, and the German one, on the contrary, to descend. The Boeing commander, who did not receive any orders from Nielsen, carried out the computer command. The commander of the Tu-154 at that moment was already fulfilling a similar order of the dispatcher and did not listen to the computer. At the same time, the crew of the German cargo plane reported their actions on the ground, but Nielsen, who was busy at that moment negotiating with the third side, did not hear this message.

The two planes went into a downward descent at the same time on a collision course.

Photo: Global Look Press/Anvar Galeev

Broken necklace

The pilots of the Boeing and Tu-154 saw each other already in the last seconds - the planes collided at a right angle, while the tail stabilizer of the Boeing hit the middle of the fuselage passenger aircraft causing it to disintegrate in the air. Having lost tail control, the Boeing lost control and also crashed to the ground.

The crash happened around 11:30 p.m. local time, but the first reports of it began to arrive after midnight. On the morning of July 2, Vitaly Kaloev, who was waiting for his family in Barcelona, ​​learned about the incident. On the same day, he flew to Switzerland, and from there went to the German city of Überlingen, near which the disaster occurred.

Having informed the police in the cordon that his wife and children were in the crashed plane, Kaloev joined the search operations at the crash site. Later, he told the National Geographic TV channel that he himself found his daughter, four-year-old Diana - first he saw her torn beads on the ground, and then discovered the child's body. It was this image that formed the basis of the memorial, installed at the site of the tragedy and called "The Broken Necklace".

In the book "Collision", also from the words of Vitaly Kaloev, another version of the development of events is described - during a search operation, he was brought to the place where the body was found for identification, where he saw the decoration lying to the side.

The crash was investigated by the German Federal Air Accident Investigation Bureau. In May 2004, the Bureau's opinion was published. It said that the Skyguide dispatching company, which failed to ensure the safety of air traffic, and its dispatcher were to blame for the collision. In addition, the document noted that the Tu-154 pilots made a maneuver contrary to the requirements of the TCAS system, and the integration of the system itself was incomplete, the instructions for it were not standardized.

Bashkir Airlines also sued the Federal Republic of Germany, in whose airspace the collision occurred. In 2006, the district court in the city of Constance, located on Lake Constance, ruled that the transfer of control of aircraft traffic to a private company located in another country was contrary to German law. All responsibility for the disaster, according to the court decision, fell on the Federal Republic of Germany. This decision was challenged by the FRG, and subsequently the dispute between Germany and Bashkir Airlines was settled out of court.

In September 2007, it was issued judgment in the case of eight employees of Skyguide, four defendants were acquitted, four were found guilty of causing death by negligence. Three of them received suspended sentences, one was sentenced to a fine.

Murder

At first, the identity of the dispatcher who was on duty at the time of the disaster was not disclosed. Subsequently, representatives of the Skyguide company told reporters that Peter Nielsen was deeply shocked by the tragedy. Shortly after the collision, he took an extended leave of absence, returned to the company a few months later, but switched to office work and never did air traffic control again.

Almost two years after the disaster, but before the publication of the official conclusion of the commission of inquiry, on February 24, 2004, a gray-haired man dressed in all black approached his house and tried to "attract the attention" of the owner. Nielsen, in whose house were his wife and three children, came out to him. After a short conversation, the man stabbed him several times and fled the scene.

The police immediately stated that they “do not exclude” the version of revenge on the dispatcher for the disaster over Lake Constance, and the dispatching company strengthened the security of the rest of the employees until all the circumstances were clarified. On suspicion of murder, Vitaly Kaloev was soon detained. He told investigators that he wanted to get an apology from the dispatcher. According to Kaloev, he showed Nielsen a photograph of his deceased family, however Nielsen knocked the photographs out of his hands and, according to some sources, laughed. What happened after that, Kaloev does not remember.

In October 2005, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to eight years in prison, in 2006 the sentence was reduced, and in 2007 Kaloev was released early for good behavior and sent to Russia. In North Ossetia, Vitaly Kaloev was greeted as a hero. A year later, in 2008, he took the post of Deputy Minister of Construction of the Republic.

"Collision" and "Consequences"

About the circumstances of the disaster, several films were filmed at once. documentaries in Russia and abroad.

In April 2017, the screens in the US came out Feature Film"Consequences", which was based on the events of 2002-2004. The role of the main character, whose prototype was Vitaliy Kaloev, was played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. After the premiere, Kaloev himself criticized the film for a number of inaccuracies and distortions.

Then, in April 2017, the book Collision: Frank history Vitaly Kaloev. In it, according to Vitaly Kaloev, the circumstances of the search operation and his last meeting with dispatcher Nielsen are described.