Unified State Exam
Unknown facts about the most tragic plane crash in the history of the country: a plane crash on a kindergarten. Tragedies in the USSR that were forbidden to write about: a plane crash on a kindergarten and children burned alive at school. Mass death of children in 1972

Unknown facts about the most tragic plane crash in the history of the country: a plane crash on a kindergarten. Tragedies in the USSR that were forbidden to write about: a plane crash on a kindergarten and children burned alive at school. Mass death of children in 1972

This plane crash, which occurred in May 1972, was kept silent for three decades. Then in broad daylight at the departmental kindergarten A military plane crashed in the resort town of Svetlogorsk. The tragedy, which was immediately classified, claimed the lives of 35 people overnight. And the place where the ill-fated kindergarten stood was razed to the ground overnight and a flowerbed was laid out there.

May 16, 1972 seemed like an ordinary day in the sleepy resort of Svetlogorsk, except that on that day it was more foggy than usual over the Baltic seaside. Pupils of the departmental kindergarten of the Svetlogorsk sanatorium returned from a morning walk and were getting ready for lunch.

The kindergarten building was a cozy two-story mansion, in which there were only 25 children. Many residents of the city in those years wanted to place their child here, but it was not easy: this children's institution was considered a "thieves' institution." Official position parents were fully justified by the status of the kindergarten: the chief of police, the head of the traffic police, the first secretary of the city committee of the Komsomol, an employee of the Svetlogorsk court, the head physician...

Photo dead group kindergarten On the right is teacher Valentina Shabashova-Metelitsa (died), on the left is head Galina Klyukhina (she was not at work on the day of the disaster)

Around noon, an An-24T military transport aircraft took off from Kaliningrad Khrabrovo airport to check and set up radio equipment. In those years, cases of illegal penetration of private aircraft from capital countries into the territory of the USSR became more frequent. There were similar incidents in the Kaliningrad region, so the local command decided to check the coastal tracking system.

An-24T aircraft in flight

At approximately 12:30 the An-24T fell into thick fog over Svetlogorsk. He walked at an unacceptably low altitude, and on a steep bank in resort area his wing caught the top of one of the pine trees and shattered into pieces. After the impact, the massive plane weighing 21 tons flew another 200 meters and crashed onto the building of the Svetlogorsk kindergarten, completely destroying the second floor.

The first victims of the tragedy were two high school students Tanya Ezhova and Natasha Tsygankova, who were walking near the kindergarten: even before the collision with the building, the plane doused them with aviation fuel vapor. The girls instantly caught fire, but still managed to survive.

Fuel poured out of the crashed car, kerosene caught fire, the kindergarten was engulfed in flames, and the aluminum skin of the plane burned like paper. Of those who were in the building, only two people survived. The disaster claimed 35 lives: 6 plane crew members, 2 passengers, 24 children and 3 kindergarten employees were killed.

A state of emergency was declared for 24 hours in the resort Svetlogorsk. Residents were forbidden to leave their homes, electricity and telephones were cut off. When the work of clearing the rubble and searching for the bodies of the dead was completed in a few hours, the place where the kindergarten had previously stood was razed to the ground and a small park was built in its place.

The dead children and teachers were buried in mass grave at the cemetery, near the Svetlogorsk-1 railway station. To reduce publicity to zero, on the day of the funeral, trains were canceled and traffic on the roads connecting Kaliningrad with Svetlogorsk was limited. But despite this, about 10 thousand people gathered at the cemetery that day.

At the funeral, KGB officers forbade taking photographs and exposed the films of those who did so. But the relatives of the victims still managed to take a few photographs.

Photo from personal archive

No criminal case was initiated into the disaster. The case was investigated as “top secret” and its materials were never published. There were many rumors about the reasons for what happened: residents of Svetlogorsk blamed the pilots for everything, claimed that the examination found alcohol in their blood, and even that the pilots noticed nudists on the beach and descended to get a better look at them.

The most plausible assumption seems to be that the crash occurred due to an altimeter malfunction. On the eve of the flight, an altimeter from the Il-14 was installed on the An-24, but no one tested how the device would work on another aircraft. Only after the disaster were tests carried out that showed that the altimeter gave an error of up to 60–70 meters.

Now at the site of the crash there is a chapel erected in 1994 with a sign: “The temple-monument in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” was built on the site of the tragic death of a kindergarten on May 16, 1972.”

Relatively not so long ago, I learned about an unusual tragedy -.

At 4 p.m. on May 16, 1972, Radio Free Europe from Munich broadcast the following message: “An An-26 military transport aircraft of the Baltic Fleet naval aviation fell three hours ago on a kindergarten in Svetlogorsk (Kaliningrad region).

Among the dead are children under 6 years of age, teachers and the plane crew, more than 30 people in total.”

The efficiency of the German radio station is easily explained - NATO radio surveillance stations operated on the island of Bornholm, which intercepted the communications of our military. But the Soviet media were silent about the incident.

On May 16, 1972, at about 12:30, an An-24T aircraft of the 263rd separate transport aviation regiment aviation Baltic Fleet The USSR, making a flight to fly over radio equipment, crashed in difficult weather conditions, hitting a tree. After a collision with a tree, the damaged plane flew about 200 meters and crashed onto the building of a kindergarten in Svetlogorsk. 33 people died in the crash: all 8 members of the plane's crew, 22 children and 3 kindergarten employees.

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

AN-24 took off from Khrabrovo at 12:15. General supervision of the flight was carried out by the operational duty officer of the aviation command post, Lieutenant Colonel Vaulev, and he also gave permission to carry out the mission. Having gained altitude, the plane reached a point in the Zelenogradsk area, “attached” to it and went to Cape Taran. Then he made a turn over the sea to reach the given bearing. There was already a dense fog over the sea. The plane collided with an obstacle at 14 minutes and 48 seconds of flight. At the same time, the black boxes recorded: the altimeter showed an altitude of 150 meters above sea level. In fact, from the foot of the steep bank to the top of the pine tree there is no more than 85 meters.

The case contains a diagram of the destruction of the plane. The commander lacked some fractions of a second. Coming out of the fog, he understood everything and pulled the rudders towards himself. Alas, the An-24 is not a fighter.”

The diagram shows down to centimeters the plane's fall after a collision with a pine tree on the seashore.

A diagram of the accident site drawn up by eyewitness Valera Rogov.

Why did the altimeter lie? It turns out that on the eve of this flight, the Navy Air Force made, as is now clear, an ill-conceived decision to replace the altimeters from the IL-14 to the AN-24. Subsequent experiments showed that the altimeter, moved from the Il-14 to the An-24, gave an error of up to 60–70 meters.

Among the first to see the falling plane were a few vacationers who found themselves in the park that day, and schoolchildren whose physical education lesson was ending at the city stadium. The next moment, the kindergarten building was shaken by a monstrous blow. Having lost both planes and the landing gear during the fall, the fuselage was halved high speed rammed the second floor, burying everyone under its rubble. Aviation fuel, which flared up with renewed vigor from the impact, consumed all living things in its flames in a matter of seconds. Next to the burning ruins of the kindergarten, an airplane cabin lay on the road. A dead pilot sat in it, clutching the steering wheel. The co-pilot was lying on the road. The wind either knocked the flames off it or fanned it with renewed vigor. Almost simultaneously, police, firefighters, and military personnel from neighboring countries arrived at the scene of the disaster. military units and sailors of the Baltic Fleet.

In a matter of minutes, a triple cordon was set up. Armed soldiers, tightly clasping hands, barely restrained the unfortunate mothers rushing to where their children died in a terrible fire. Somehow we managed to push them to a safe distance. Along the road, on the soot-blackened lawn, the military laid out white sheets. Immediately, rescuers began to place the remains of children recovered from under the ruins on them. Many, unable to bear it, closed their eyes and turned away. Someone fainted.

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

As soon as the last loaded car left the city, the place where the kindergarten had stood the day before was leveled, covering the scorched earth with turf. In order to hide the traces of the tragedy from prying eyes, it was decided to plant a large flowerbed in that place.

By morning, it was as if the garden had never existed - a flowerbed had bloomed in its place! - Andrey Dmitriev recalls. “Many parents didn’t believe their eyes then. The scorched earth has been cut away, turf has been laid, and paths have been strewn with broken red bricks. Broken and burnt trees were cut down. And there was only a sharp smell of kerosene. The smell lasted for another two weeks...

Garden workers Tamara Yankovskaya, Antonina Romanenko and her friend Yulia Vorona, who happened to come to visit her that day, were taken to a military hospital with severe burns. In addition to their relatives, KGB officers visited them daily in the hospital, ready for any help in exchange for silence.

Unfortunately, Romanenko died quickly without regaining consciousness, Yankovskaya died six months later, and Vorona survived. The dead children and teachers were buried in a mass grave in a cemetery, not far from the Svetlogorsk-1 railway station. On the day of the funeral, traffic on the roads connecting the regional center with Svetlogorsk was limited.

At the same time, diesel trains carrying passengers from Kaliningrad to the resort town were cancelled. The official version is urgent repairs of access roads, the unofficial version is to minimize publicity of all the circumstances of the plane crash. On the day of the funeral of the dead children, more than 7,000 people gathered at the cemetery in Svetlogorsk.

No criminal case was opened regarding the plane crash in Svetlogorsk. They limited themselves only to the order of the Minister of Defense, in accordance with which about 40 military officials were removed from their positions. And even then the main version appeared: the pilots were to blame, in whose blood alcohol was allegedly found. For this reason, relatives of the deceased children and kindergarten staff prohibited burying the pilots in the Svetlogorsk cemetery next to “their victims.” For the same reason, in the church-chapel, in the general list of those killed in the plane crash, there was no place for eight names of crew members.

In 1972, it was not customary to widely cover the details of accidents and disasters, especially those that happened in the military department. And the circumstances of the tragedy that occurred in a small resort town on the shore Baltic Sea, were covered in a veil of silence. Albeit with a great delay, but the public charge against the crew, who themselves became the victim of erroneous office decisions, has finally been dropped...”

In 1994, a chapel was built in the square laid out at the site of the tragedy.

sources

After the Curonian Spit before Kaliningrad, we planned a short walk around Svetlogorsk, a former German resort town, which we were strongly advised to visit. Svetlogorsk is located on the shores of the Baltic Sea, 50 km from Kaliningrad. The population of the city is about 11 thousand people. Svetlogorsk received its modern name in 1946; before that time the city was called Rauschen (German: Rauschen). The city's popularity as a resort has increased significantly since 1900, when the railway from Königsberg to Rauschen/Ort station (now Svetlogorsk-1), extended in 1906 to Rauschen/Dune station (Svetlogorsk-2). Trains could now travel closer to the sea, and the resort became much more accessible to many residents of Königsberg.

Svetlogorsk is connected to Kaliningrad by a highway. It is part of the Primorsky Ring under construction. Surprisingly, this 4-lane expressway of continuous traffic with bumpers, night lighting and interchanges is not federal highway. True, only the first two stages have been put into operation so far: Kaliningrad - Zelenogradsk - Khrabrovo Airport and Zelenogradsk - Svetlogorsk - Pionersky. After completion of construction, the ring will be closed with Kaliningrad through the cities of Baltiysk and Svetly.

1. Primorsky Ring, first stage, image from Google StreetView.

2. Svetlogorsk can easily be considered one of those cities where you can return again. This is a quiet seaside town with interesting architectural buildings.

3. We go down to the Promenade and the sundial.

4. Sundial (1974) in the form of a mosaic panel with images of the zodiac signs.

5. Beach.

6. In 1908, a wooden promenade deck was built on stilts on the seashore.

7. Descent to the beach.

8. Bronze sculpture "Nymph" (1938) by Hermann Brachert on the Promenade.

9. Contemporary sculpture (early 2000s) on the Promenade.

10. Swans in the waters of the Baltic Sea.

11. Anchor.

13. The main symbol of the city is the Hydrotherapy Tower.

14. The 25-meter-high sea spa tower was built between 1900 and 1908.

15. In 1978, a sundial was installed on the tower, which organically blended into the appearance of the building.

16. We didn’t have a classic paper or electronic (OsmAnd) map at that time; we navigated among the city’s attractions using this photograph.

17. We went to have a snack at the cafe “For Friends” on Lenin Street. It turned out quite tasty and very inexpensive (740 rubles for three).

The “Hunting Lodge” building was built in 1926 according to the original design of the architect. Goering in Art Nouveau style. From 1925 to 1933 the owner of the house was the burgomaster of Rauschen, Karl von Streng. Because of its extraordinary architecture, the building was repeatedly filmed in films, including in the film “Little Red Riding Hood”, which is where the name “House of the Astrologer” came from, played by the famous actor Evgeny Evstigneev. In 2003, the house became private property and was restored by specialists from the Czech Republic and Moscow. The building was raised on jacks and the beams were replaced. The slate tiles for the roof were brought from the Czech Republic. Thanks to the fact that stained glass windows post-war period were cemented, and the inlaid parquet was painted with oil paint, they were preserved, and during the reconstruction of the building they were restored.

18. "Hunting Lodge" (1926).

19. Many houses are less fortunate; they still have a very long wait for restoration.

20. Memorial sign to Thomas Mann (2003) in memory of his visit to Rauschen in 1929.

21. Signposts in different styles.

22. Sculptural composition “The Frog Princess” (2006).

23. Railway station Svetlogorsk-2.

24. Pancake house with original wall paintings. We will definitely go there on our next visit to Svetlogorsk.

25. Most of the buildings are carefully maintained in a single architectural style.

26. Marble sculpture “Carrying Water” (1944) by Hermann Brachert.

27. Building of the Svetlogorsk sanatorium.

28. An original solution, in a niche of an ordinary residential building there is a sculpture of a German sailor.

29. A small wooden mill on the territory of the Old Doctor hotel.

30. Church of Seraphim of Sarov (since 1992), in the past (1907-1946) - Lutheran Church of Rauschen.

And at the end of the photo story about Svetlogorsk, there is one more memorable place -.

31. Chapel in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” at the site of the destruction of the kindergarten on May 16, 1972.

The chapel was erected in memory of the victims of the disaster May 16, 1972. On this day on previously located here kindergarten plane crashed. At 12:15, six experienced pilots took off from the Khrabrovo airfield on an An-24 military transport aircraft. At 12:29:48, emerging from the dense fog over the sea, the plane chops off the top of a pine tree with its wing and falls onto a kindergarten with a damaged wing. At these moments 22 children and three adults were seated at tables for lunch. The cause of the disaster was incorrect readings from the altimeter switched to the An-24 from the Il-14. No one checked how it would behave on the new plane. Victims ill-conceived decision became Svetlogorsk children and the An-24 crew.

32. Memorial plaque.

By morning, the soldiers' hands turned the gaping crater into a square with flowers. At that time, official information about such tragedies was not published. Only 22 years later, with public donations, a chapel was built on the site of the bitter grave in memory of those who died so unexpectedly and so terribly on that May day. On May 16, pilots from Khrabrovo arrive at the place of death and lay flowers. There is no other monument to their colleagues. Children come here for Sunday school.

33. ...

For many years the terrible history of Svetlogorsk could not even be mentioned. When new times came, fundraising for the chapel began. It was erected in 1994. And since then a candle has always been burning in her. In memory of those who once suffered a terrible death here...

Last minutes (based on Wikimapia).

Today, the kindergarten of sanatorium No. 3 (the current Svetlogorsk) would probably be considered “elite”. And then they called him “thieves”. Cozy two-story mansion. There are 25 children in total. Warm staff. Many wanted to place their child here.

According to the Kaliningrad Hydrometeorological Bureau, on May 16, cloudy weather with clearings without significant precipitation is expected in the region, fog in places in the morning, variable winds are weak to moderate, the temperature is five to ten degrees Celsius.” The weather forecasters were right. The weather that distant day turned out to be really bad. Nevertheless, the children still enjoyed going for a traditional walk.

The husband of teacher Valentina Shabashova-Metelitsa was in the hospital, where he underwent surgery. Valentina was in a hurry to Kaliningrad to visit her husband. And so I finished my walk twenty minutes earlier than usual. Many people believe that if children were still walking instead of sitting in the building, they would have a chance...

On May 16, Yulia Vorona and her husband Vladimir went to buy a TV. The path lay past the kindergarten. Antonina Romanenko, Yulia’s friend, worked there as a cook.

Shall I run over to Tosa for a minute?

In the locker room, Vorona saw two boys standing in a corner.

What are you doing this for, huh?

In response, they only sniffled offendedly.

They played around, so they were punished,” the teacher explained with feigned severity. Everyone who knew her says that she was a very kind person.

Come on, Val! - the guest waved it off in an unpedagogical manner. - Come on, let's shoot, go to lunch!

One boy rushed to wash his hands, the other to the toilet. The teacher went outside to meet her Andryushka. He was sick, his grandmother took him to warm up. And on the way they decided to visit their mother.

The rest of the kids were already in the dining room.

We sat quietly at the tables, like angels, waiting for the first, second, compote,” Yulia Egorovna wipes away the tears that came.

Leaving Anna Nezvanova in the kitchen to finish frying the cutlets, Tosya and Yulia went out to the games room. Chatting, they stood at the window. We watched Valya hugging his son as he ran up on the street.

While waiting for Yulia, my husband decided to pick her lilies of the valley. Having moved a hundred meters away, he heard a hum and a strange crackling sound. Turning towards the sound, I froze: from the sea, breaking the tops of trees, a plane was rushing...

At the stadium near the kindergarten, a physical education lesson had just ended. The class stretched out and returned to school. Seeing the plane, everyone seemed numb.

To me! - Having come to his senses, teacher Yuri Baklanov shouted to the guys who had gone ahead.

Everyone ran back. And then the plane crashed...

Maria Kudreshova then worked in an atelier as a men's cutter. It was an ordinary Tuesday, it was about lunchtime. Suddenly - the sound of an explosion. Immediately after this, the electricity went out.

And then - terrible news:

The kindergarten exploded!

Maria Grigorievna had a son Alyoshka there. She jumped out into the street, saw a motorcycle standing there, and began shouting: “Whose motorcycle?!” The owner came running and they rushed off. We arrived, and in place of the kindergarten it was hell. Everything was burning, even the asphalt. There was an airplane cabin lying on the road. A dead pilot sat in it, clutching the steering wheel. The body of another was hanging on a tree. There were no firefighters yet. The first people who came running to help were rushing around, not knowing what to do.

Among them was Vladimir Moiseevich, the husband of Yulia Egorovna.

You won’t believe it, but for some reason I was sure: my Julia is alive, alive!

Having woken up, Crow, covered in debris, could only turn her head. I saw that Tosya was dead nearby. Yulia Egorovna was saved by the closet. He took the brunt of everything that was flying at her head.

The woman tried to get out. In vain. She started screaming: “Help, help!” Meanwhile, the fire was already approaching her. It was getting harder and harder to breathe...

And then - an explosion. As it turned out later, the gas cylinders standing in the kitchen exploded. As a result, a hole appeared in the rubble. The crow began to make its way upstairs.

Having got out, she walked at random through the burning ruins. A fireman is coming towards you. Seeing Yulia, he threw the fire hose and ran away.

I got scared. No wonder I looked terrible. And in general, this kind of thing happened there. Anyone will lose their nerve.

She was eventually pulled out by a police officer she knew, Pyotr Zanin. Then they put Yulia on the grass and tried to persuade her not to move. She kept rushing back: “Tosya is burning there, we need to get her!”

You can't hide the truth

Eduard Trushchenkov 35 years ago was the secretary for ideology of the Svetlogorsk city committee of the CPSU. It so happened that in those days he remained in the city “on the farm.” The first secretary fell ill with a heart attack, the second left.

On the morning of May 16, Trushchenkov was in Kaliningrad - at a meeting in the regional committee dedicated to the affairs of the fishing industry. By noon the meeting was over, and the secretary went back. Suddenly his car was overtaken by an ambulance. Behind her is another, a third.

“Let’s go after them,” Eduard Vasilyevich said to the driver, getting worried.

When they arrived at the scene of the tragedy, the area was already cordoned off. Military personnel and cadets from the police school came to the aid of the firefighters. Some collected the remains of the pilots and the wreckage of the plane, others dismantled the ruins of the kindergarten, removing bodies from under the rubble.

By the way, on the same day the Voice of America reported about the emergency in Svetlogorsk.

On May 17, there was a meeting dedicated to what happened,” Trushchenkov continues. - And I asked: how did people abroad learn about our misfortune so quickly? Are there really agents in Svetlogorsk who work for foreign intelligence? One of the KGB officers reluctantly explained: the foreigners intercepted the negotiations, they have a tracking station nearby.

Despite the measures taken by the “authorities,” the news of the tragedy quickly spread here too.

Soon after the plane crashed, my friends from Svetly called me,” recalls Larisa Novikova, who lived in Svetlogorsk at the time. - Like, what happened there? And in the evening they called from Kyiv. By that time, I was already a little out of my mind. There is only talk around about what happened. Two people from our house died at once - a girl and a boy...

The scant information about the tragedy was distorted and overgrown with speculation. Sometimes people only knew that a plane had fallen on some kindergarten. And they ran in panic to “their” kindergarten, where they had taken the child in the morning.

Life after death...

The tragic incident was the number one topic in Svetlogorsk for a long time. Then, as usual, history began to be forgotten little by little. And only the relatives of the victims always remember May 16, 1972. Some never managed to recover from that day at all. Someone drank himself to death, someone committed suicide... Time, of course, heals. And yet, as soon as you talk to them about that tragedy, tears appear in their eyes. On the morning of May 16, relatives of the victims will again gather in the chapel on Lenin Street. After the service everyone will go to the cemetery.

Trip log: 6 April 2018, 09:11

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

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

Trajectory of death

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

“I have a brother here,” says one. - Burned alive. Are you from Moscow? Tell me, why are they still not writing about our tragedy at all, or are they writing nonsense? I once read that, supposedly, after the disaster there was a mass suicide in the city. That parents committed suicide, unable to bear the pain of loss. I also read that many people drank themselves after this. Not true! In fact, many decided to give birth and named newborns after the names of dead children.

The women and the priest of the local temple give us “addresses, passwords, appearances.” For some reason we are sure that now all the victims and eyewitnesses will tell how it really happened.

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

We were returning to our school along a forest path that went past the kindergarten,” recalls Nikolai Alekseev, a former student of one of the schools. “When we saw the plane falling on our heads, we were dumbfounded with horror; someone tried to run away. “Stop!” - our teacher shouted to us. Standing rooted to the spot, we froze in place. We stood and watched as this uncontrollable colossus, dousing us with the heat of its turbines and losing altitude, flew over our heads.

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

There were only a few meters left before the kindergarten when we were doused with burning vapors from aviation fuel,” recalls Tatyana Ezhova, whom we met at the scene of the tragedy. “We didn’t even have time to understand anything, when in an instant our hair, clothes, and shoes flashed on us. We were in severe shock from fear and unbearable pain. There is not a soul around, and we are alone in the middle of the street, engulfed in flames...

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

Having returned from their walk, the children sat down in their places, waiting for lunch. The dining room was filled with the aroma of hot soup. The cook, Tamara Yankovskaya, probably, as usual, slowly walked between the tables, making sure that the students ate carefully, slowly, and held their spoons correctly.

Looking out the window, teacher Valentina Shabashova-Metelitsa saw her son Andrei. That day the boy was walking with his grandmother Nina around the city. Near the kindergarten Nina Sergeevna met a neighbor. We stopped to chat. “Grandma, should I run to mom for a minute?” asked Andrei. Valentina ran out to meet him. Mother and son only had time to hug...

The next moment, the kindergarten building was shaken by a monstrous blow. Having lost both planes and the landing gear during the fall, the half-halved fuselage rammed the second floor at high speed, burying everyone under its rubble. Aviation fuel, which flared up with renewed vigor from the impact, consumed all living things in its flames in a matter of seconds.

Next to the burning ruins of the kindergarten, an airplane cabin lay on the road. A dead pilot sat in it, clutching the steering wheel. The co-pilot was lying on the road. The wind either knocked the flames off it or fanned it with renewed vigor.

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

A diagram of the accident site drawn up by eyewitness Valera Rogov.

Misidentification

It seemed that no one could survive in this hell. And yet, not everyone died. Anna Nezvanova, a kindergarten nanny, escaped a terrible death by wiping the windows on the street side with a rag. The blast wave threw her several meters to the side. Having barely come to her senses, Anna Nikitichna rushed to the burning ruins. There, under the ruins of the kindergarten, was her son Vanya. A woman, distraught with grief, trying to get her child, almost died in the fire...

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

And I ended up in the hospital with kidney disease,” recalls Oleg Saushkin, who was then six years old. “I remember that at some point the whole hospital began to bustle. Everyone started running, cars were driving out somewhere, confusion and signs of some kind of distant horror reigned in the eyes of the hospital staff. And my mother, with tears in her eyes, a little later, told about what happened in my kindergarten...

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

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

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

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

Almost simultaneously, police squads, firefighters, servicemen from neighboring military units and Baltic Fleet sailors arrived at the scene of the disaster. In a matter of minutes, a triple cordon was set up. Armed soldiers, tightly clasping hands, barely restrained the unfortunate mothers rushing to where their children died in a terrible fire. Somehow we managed to push them to a safe distance.

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

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

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

In order for special vehicles to park and pick up the remains of the dead, rescuers and firefighters had to drag away a pile of bricks and mangled fragments of the plane in different directions from a narrow street. The asphalt was covered with numerous furrows, more like bleeding wounds. Soldiers immediately appeared with canvas stretchers. Two strong fighters carried the burnt body of the pilot next to Valera Rogov. Then - another, a third. Someone grabbed Valera's hand. The boy turned around and saw tear-stained women who, pointing their fingers at the smoking ruins, shouted to him: “Why are they there, and you here?!” You should have been with them! They told your mother that you are with them!..”

State of emergency

The consequences of the Svetlogorsk tragedy were terrifying: 24 (and not 23, as stated in official sources) pupils, one kindergarten teacher and 8 crew members were burned alive. Where did another child come from? It turned out that one of the girls was the captain's daughter long voyage. A sad telephone message was sent to his ship. In response, he asked not to bury his daughter in a mass grave, but to wait for him. That’s why the girl was not taken into account...

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

At the funeral, KGB officers forbade taking photographs and exposed the films of those who did so. But the relatives of the victims still managed to take a few photographs. Photo from personal archive

Quiet Consequence

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

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

There were other versions, sometimes absurd. Some argued that the pilots were poorly prepared for the mission. They didn’t forget about the nudist girls sunbathing on the beach (and this was in 1972, and at a temperature of plus 6 degrees!), whom the pilots allegedly tried to see during their next descent over the sea. They wrote that the crew allegedly took off without permission. In reality, the reason was the altimeter...

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

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

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

In the declassified case, the diagram clearly shows the entire path of the crash of the aircraft and the destruction of its structure. But eyewitnesses of the events drew their own map. They say that maybe this will help heal their wound at least a little... How? The fact that the inhabitants of a huge country will finally see for themselves how everything really happened.