The plane crash over Lake Constance in 2002 was a tragedy that claimed the lives of one hundred and forty people. The largest collision of two aircraft in the air was due to a controller error, whose life soon ended too.
TU-154
The Russian plane belonged to Bashkir Airlines. It was almost new, since its release year 1995. Twice leased to foreign airlines, but on January 15, 2002 he returned to his native land.
The crew was quite experienced. The commander - A. M. Gross (fifty-two years) - flew 12070 hours. He became the first pilot of this aircraft in May 2001, before that he was acting as co-pilot.
In addition to the PIC, there was also M.A. Itkulov, who had worked at Bashkiravia for eighteen years. He was the co-pilot of this vessel since April 2001.
The navigator was S. G. Kharlov, probably the most experienced crew member. He worked at the airline for twenty-seven years, flying with almost 13, 000 hours.
In the cabin was a flight engineer O.I. Valeev, as well as the inspector - O.P. Grigoryev (pilot of the first class). The latter was in place of the second pilot and watched the actions of Gross.
Four cabin crew worked in the cabin. The most experienced was Olga Bagina, who spent 11546 hours in the sky.
Thus, a plane crash over Lake Constance claimed the lives of nine crew members.
Passengers Tu-154
On board the airliner were sixty people. They all died.
The worst news of that day was a plane crash over Lake Constance. The death toll spoke louder than all the media, because fifty-two passengers were children whose lives had just begun.
Almost all those flying were from Ufa, the capital of Bashkiria. Almost all the dead children were children of high-ranking officials of the republic (for example, the daughter of the head of the presidential administration of Bashkiria, the daughter of the deputy minister of culture, the son of the director of the Iglinsky plant and others).
The list of victims of the crash over Lake Constance was supplemented by Ekaterina Pospelova (b. 1973), who was deputy dean of the social and humanitarian faculty for educational work.
The remaining passengers also belonged to the elite of Bashkiria, for example, Svetlana Kaloeva, deputy general director of the Daryal plant. She flew with her two children to a meeting with her husband, who worked in Spain.
The crash over Lake Constance became the largest for Bashkiria. The mourning in the republic lasted three days.
Boeing 757
This aircraft was released in 1990 and among the other ships of its airline was the oldest (flown more than 39, 000 hours).
In 1996, the aircraft was bought by a freight company and operated to transport documentation and other materials.
On an unfortunate day, the Englishman Paul Phillips, forty-seven years old, sat at the helm. He was a fairly experienced pilot. He worked at the company for thirteen years. As an aircraft commander, since 1991.
The co-pilot was Brent Cantioni from Canada.
Since the plane was a cargo plane, there were only two crew members on it, whose life was claimed by a plane crash over Lake Constance.
Events before the tragedy
Passengers on flight 2937 flew from Moscow to Barcelona. For most of the children, this trip was a reward for excellent study and extracurricular activities. The Committee for UNESCO paid for this deadly vacation. The head of the committee in this flight lost his daughter.
I must say that around this flight the hype began far before the departure from Ufa. Almost all high-ranking officials sought to get a place for their children on the plane, so for some “ordinary citizens” this power of power saved their lives. For example, journalist L. Sabitova and her six-year-old daughter were supposed to board that unfortunate plane. The director of the travel agency that organized this trip promised Sabitova a ticket to Spain as a fee for the article. But on the last day he canceled everything, explaining this by pressure from above. The places of the journalist and her child were taken by the children of the top authorities of Bashkiria.
There might not have been a fatal flight, but a group of Bashkir schoolchildren were late for their plane. The airline, realizing the importance of passengers, quickly organized an additional one. Eight tickets were also sold directly to him in Moscow.
The Boeing 757 flew a scheduled cargo flight from Bahrain to Brussels. Before the collision, he had already made an intermediate landing in Bergamo. The plane crash (2002) over Lake Constance occurred half an hour after they took off from Italian soil.
Clash
At the time of the collision, both aircraft were in German airspace. Despite this circumstance, the movement in the sky was controlled by a Swiss company. There were only two dispatchers at that night shift, one of whom left his workplace shortly before the disaster.
Since Peter Nielsen was alone at the post and was forced to monitor several airways, he did not immediately notice that the two planes were moving towards each other in the same echelon.
FAC TU-154 was the first to notice an object in the sky moving in their direction. He decided to decline. Around the same time, Nielsen got in touch, who also indicated a decline. However, he did not provide the necessary information to another board, which is in dangerous proximity.
At the Boeing, the signal "Dangerous approximation" triggered and gave the command to decline. At the same time on TU-154, the same signal ordered to gain altitude. The Boeing pilot began to decline, the TU-154 pilot, acting on the orders of the dispatcher, too.
Nielsen also misled the crew of the Russian plane, giving incorrect information about the location of the Boeing. The planes collided at 21:35:32 almost at a right angle. At 21:37, the wreckage of aircraft fell to the ground in the vicinity of Huberlingen.
The plane crash (2002) over Lake Constance was visible from the ground. Some, seeing two balls of fire in the sky, decided that it was a UFO.
Investigation
The special commission undertook to find out the reasons for the tragedy. It was created by the German Federal Bureau, which is conducting an investigation into air crashes. Two planes collided over Lake Constance, all passengers died. The report of this commission was announced only two years later.
Among the main reasons were called the wrong actions (or rather inaction) of the dispatcher and the error of the TU-154 crew, who ignored the system of automatic warning of dangerous proximity, completely obeying Peter Nielsen.
Also illegal actions of the SkyGid company, which was engaged in air traffic control, were noted. Management should not have allowed only one dispatcher to be on duty at night.
On the ill-fated night, the telephone did not work in the control room, as well as equipment (radar), which warns of a possible rapprochement of aircraft.
All these facts were taken into account by the commission, which is conducting an investigation into air crashes.
The collision over Lake Constance caused a great resonance not only in society, but in the entire flight control system. Since if the TU-154 crew acted on the orders of the warning system, tragedy would not have happened. However, in regulatory documents such a system was called auxiliary, that is, the instructions of the dispatcher were priority. After the incident, it was decided to make the appropriate changes in flight management.
Killing dispatcher
July 1, 2002 there was a plane crash over Lake Constance. The death toll included Svetlana Kaloeva and her two children: Kostya and Diana. The family flew to Barcelona, where their father Vitaly was.
The man was one of the first to arrive at the scene of the tragedy and personally helped find the remains of his beloved people.
In February 2004, Kaloev was detained on suspicion of the murder of Peter Nielsen, the same dispatcher. A man was mortally wounded on the threshold of his house in Zurich. Vitaly did not admit his guilt, but confirmed that he was visiting Peter to get an apology for what he had done.
Kaloev was sentenced to eight years in prison. In November 2007, the man was prematurely released and deported to Russia.
Court
The crash over Lake Constance, the reconstruction of which proved the controller’s illegal actions, caused a high-profile lawsuit.
So, Bashkir Airlines filed a lawsuit against SkyGuide, and then against Germany. The accusations were that neither side took the necessary measures to ensure traffic safety in airspace.
The court ruled that Germany was responsible for what happened, since the country did not have the right to transfer air traffic control to an overseas company. The conflict between the country and the airline was settled only in 2013 out of court.
SkyGuide was found guilty of a plane crash over Lake Constance. The list of perpetrators consisted of four people, one of which cost only a monetary fine.
