Fifteen years have passed since the tragedy over Lake Constance. The film “Consequences” again reminded the whole world of the act of the inconsolable father Vitaly Kaloev. Then the public was divided into two camps. Some justified his actions in dire condition and affect. Others considered the brutal killer who killed the controller in front of his wife and children. How does Vitaliy Kaloev, who has lost his entire family, live now, and how did this terrible story end? We will find out all the details and try to understand this extraordinary incident.
Biography
Born January 15, 1956 in Ordzhonikidze (Vladikavkaz). My father was a school teacher - he taught the Ossetian language. Mother worked as a teacher in a kindergarten. Vitaly was the youngest in a large family - there were only three brothers and three sisters. He graduated from school with honors and went to study the art of architect. While studying, he worked as a foreman at a construction site. Before perestroika, he worked as an architect and took part in the construction of the Sputnik military camp.
In the difficult years after the collapse of the USSR, he assembled his own building cooperative. Since 1999, he lived in Spain, where he designed houses for his compatriots.
A family
Vitaly Kaloev married in 1991 to Svetlana Pushkinovna Gagieva. The girl graduated from the Faculty of Economics and successfully built a career. Starting from the position of a simple employee of the bank, she rose to the head of the department. On November 19, 1991, the first child appeared in the family. The boy was named Constantine in honor of his paternal grandfather. March 7, 1998 Diana was born. The name of the sister was chosen by Kostya. At school, the boy studied well and was attracted to astronautics and paleontology.
Unlucky flight
Vitaly Kaloev had not seen relatives for nine months and was looking forward to their arrival in Spain. He successfully worked in Barcelona and managed to complete the project by the arrival of his family. Svetlana with children could not buy tickets in Moscow, until there were seats on the same plane of the Bashkir Airlines.
Late night, July 2, 2002, two aircraft collided in the sky over South Germany: the passenger TU-154 and the cargo Boeing 757. Both crews died, children died - 52 children aged 8 to 16 years. Almost all of them were students of the Ufa school for especially gifted children. They flew to Barcelona. They were awarded vouchers for academic excellence and brilliant results in school olympiads.
Clash
This catastrophe was the worst tragedy in the history of civil aviation of the XXI century. The collision of aircraft occurred in the sky over Germany, so the investigation was carried out by the German prosecutor's office and the federal bureau for the investigation of air accidents. It took two years to establish the cause of the disaster. For the Germans, two questions were the main ones - how did the dangerous approach of the two planes come about and why did the collision avoidance system fail to prevent a catastrophe?
The Commission found that the collision of aircraft was the result of a mistake by the Skyguide controller, contradictions in the instructions of the international civil aviation organization and the rules of the collision avoidance system. And also because of the wrong actions of the crew of "TU-154". Further investigation proved the groundless accusations against Russian pilots, and the blame for the collision with them will be dropped. However, the fate of another Russian, whose trial took place at the end of October 2005, is already clear. The catastrophe over Lake Constance deprived his family and faith in justice.
With a superficial look at the findings of the commission, it is clear that the results of the investigation are extremely contradictory. If at the time of the crash the pilots followed the instructions of the dispatcher, then the dispatcher is to blame. If in a critical situation the pilots acted contrary to instructions from the ground, then the pilots themselves were to blame, and the dispatcher had nothing to do with it. This strange fact would have gone unnoticed, if not for one dramatic incident in the small Swiss town of Kloten.
The assassination of Peter Nielsen
On February 24, 2004, in the suburbs of Zurich Kloten, a certain Peter Nielsen was brutally murdered on the threshold of his own house. The killer inflicted multiple blows of cold steel on the victim, which was later discovered near the scene. It turned out to be a souvenir knife worth 54 Swiss francs. The victim’s neighbor showed that some stranger, several minutes before the incident, asked her in poor German, where Peter Nielsen lives.
In hot pursuit, a snapshot of the suspect was compiled. However, witnesses to the crime could not be found. This was strange because Kloten is a small village in which houses stand a few meters apart. Streets, approaches and porches are visible from the windows, in full view, and all life goes on in front of neighbors. The Swiss police immediately dropped the version of the robbery. The criminal or criminals did not touch anything in the house. Why then was it necessary to take the life of a simple resident of a Swiss village?
Killer identity
The answer came at a time when it became clear that Peter Nielsen is the very dispatcher whose erroneous commands led to the collision of two aircraft. The very next day, the police arrest the Russian citizen Vitaly Konstantinovich Kaloev. According to a Swiss investigation, the accused went to the dispatcher’s house the night before and had a conversation with a neighbor. The man rang the doorbell, and when the landlord went out, he tried to talk to him. Then a quarrel arose, and Kaloev first pulled out a knife. Vitaliy Kaloev killed the dispatcher, inflicting 12 knife wounds on him. Initially, the first suspect was another Russian - Vladimir Savchuk. He also lost his entire family in a plane crash, but had an iron alibi. On the day of the murder, he was in Russia.
Reasons and motives
The motive for the crime, according to Swiss law enforcement agencies, could be the personal revenge of the Russian. In a plane crash over Lake Constance, Kaloev lost his whole family - his wife and two children. But he did not admit his guilt in the murder of the dispatcher. From the materials of the investigation. “I knocked, called myself and gestured that I was invited to the house. He did not want to invite me and took on a defiant look. I said nothing, took a photograph of my dead children from my pocket and handed it to him, telling him to look. ” What happened after this, Kaloev does not remember. At the interrogation, he said: “I do not remember what really happened. But when I see the evidence, I think that I killed Mr. Nielsen. ” The Swiss prosecutor's office considered these words of the Russian official recognition of their guilt. However, some facts raise more questions than answers. Why did Kaloev go to kill the dispatcher, taking with him an uncomfortable penknife? Why did Nielsen wait for the killer to pull out his weapon and open it, instead of hiding in the house?
The tragedy of Vitaly Kaloev
The Russian was among the first to arrive at the crash site and was eager to examine the scene of the accident along with rescuers. Upon learning that his whole family was flying on this flight, he was given permission to go to the cordoned off territory. He wandered between the wreckage of the aircraft for a long time, trying to find his wife and children. Finally, three kilometers from the crash site, he found the beads of the youngest daughter, and then Diana herself. A little later, he discovered the body of his son. Later it turned out that the boy fell right next to the intersection, past which Vitaly was passing, but he did not recognize his child in him. Witnesses and video filming served as the best evidence of the unbearable grief of a man: he was suffocating in sobs and literally did not control himself in these terrible days. Until the last hours, he did not leave the crash site. Vitaly Kaloev not only lost his family - he lost his life.
Support and help
Kaloev perfectly remembers all the moments of being at the scene of the tragedy. He recalls how at first they did not want to admit him to the search, but then the situation changed. Volunteers and police simply could not stand being in this territory. People fainted and were removed. When he discovered the site of the fall of his Diana, he began to touch the earth, trying to understand if his child’s soul remained here or had already gone to heaven. He felt for the beads with his fingers and asked a German woman if it would be possible to erect a monument to Diana in this place? Fundraising began immediately and the architect later erected a monument to all the victims of the disaster on this site. It is a torn string of beads.
Doubtful treatment
After the detention, Kaloev was placed in a psychiatric hospital. Over the entire period of Vitaly’s stay there was not a single independent examination that would objectively assess the state of the Russian citizen and the methods of his treatment. He spent a whole year in the clinic. What has become of his memory during this time? One thing is clear - even after many months of treatment, Vitaly Konstantinovich Kaloev never claimed responsibility for the death of the dispatcher Nielsen. According to investigators, the Russian wanted to avenge the death of his wife and two children. This is a serious motive. But why, then, Kaloev pulled revenge for almost a year and a half, because he learned the name of the dispatcher in the first days after the disaster?
Sentence
On October 26, 2005, the story of Vitaliy Kaloev reappeared on the pages of all print media. The Russian was sentenced to eight years in prison. The world community again remembered those terrible days and the tragedy over Lake Constance. The inhabitants of Switzerland themselves did not expect such a harsh sentence. Letters came to the Russian in jails in which people expressed their support and wished him speedy release. He corresponded with some people, in particular with a Swiss woman. She sent him cards and encouraged all these two years. The children of her friend painted pictures for him. At home in Ossetia, the people were indignant and demanded a review of the case. On indirect evidence alone and without Kaloev’s recognition, they were imprisoned for eight years.
Exemption
The Swiss authorities did not prevent the release of the Russian after two years in prison. For exemplary behavior, he was released and returned home. In North Ossetia he was met as a national hero. First, the man went to the cemetery, where he cried for a long time at the grave of his wife and children. Years could not erase all pain and resentment from his memory and heart. Now he could calmly talk about what he had to reschedule for those one and a half years. He did not need monetary compensation. All he wanted was to hear an apology from the company itself. Not having obtained a word of remorse from them, he went home to the dispatcher. But he behaved impudently and knocked out photographs of dead children from his hands. He does not remember further events, but even if his hands are really in blood, he did not do it for fun. The fate of Vitaly Kaloev was very difficult, and he paid in full for this crime.
