Disaster in the skies over the Black Sea: Ukraine paid the money, but did not admit guilt. Disaster in the sky over the Black Sea: Ukraine paid the money, but did not admit guilt...in the Russian Federation

Crew

The coordinates of the approximate crash site of the plane have been determined 42.183333 , 37.616667 42°11′ N. w. 37°37′ E. d. / 42.183333° N. w. 37.616667° E. d.(G) (O), which is approximately 280 kilometers from Novorossiysk.

A special commission was created to establish the causes of the accident. An An-26 of the Russian Federal Border Service urgently flew to the scene of the accident from Gelendzhik. The border patrol ship "Grif" also went there. Also, an AN-12 plane of the Ministry of Defense and a Mi-8 helicopter of the Sochi Search and Rescue Service with rafts and rescuers on board flew to the crash site, two rescue tugboats - "Mercury" from Tuapse and "Captain Beklemishchev" from Novorossiysk, as well as a vessel of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations - headed "Rescuer Prokopchik". The An-12 plane found oil stains at the supposed crash site. Helicopters found several pieces of the plane and the bodies of dead passengers floating on the surface of the sea.

Versions

Technical investigation

October 5 Information appeared about bullet holes found in the Tu-154 fuselage, but this information was called premature. Head of the West Siberian Regional Directorate air transport Vladimir Tasun stated that “according to unverified information, the controller on the locator saw a luminous point quickly approaching the plane. This is the only thing that was received from unofficial sources via telephone channels by employees of the Sibir company from Rostov.” On the same day, rescuers from Israel joined the Russian rescuers, and an analysis of the Tu-154 crew’s conversations and an analysis of the videotape recording radar readings began. On this day, Prime Minister of Ukraine Anatoly Kinakh made a statement that the version of a missile hitting the Siberia Airlines Tu-154 plane “has a right to exist.”

October 6 Secretary of the Russian Security Council Vladimir Rushailo said that objects that were not related to the structure of the aircraft were found at the scene of the accident, and that “the aircraft was destroyed as a result of an explosive attack.” At the same time, the head of the Main Directorate of the North Caucasus Regional Center of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, Ivan Teterin, expressed the opinion that the likelihood of finding any remains of the Tu-154 aircraft at the bottom of the Black Sea is minimal due to the great depth and zero visibility.

October 7th According to the commission, at 13:45:12 the scream of the Tu-154 pilot was recorded by a ground tape recorder.

October 9 According to the commission, an analysis of the holes in the fuselage shows that the plane could have been hit by a missile from the S-200 air defense system, since the size and shape of the holes are quite consistent with the shrapnel of the high-explosive fragmentation warhead of the missile of this particular complex. Establishing the details of the disaster is complicated by the inability to determine the exact location of the plane crash - the debris was scattered over an area with a radius of more than 12 nautical miles.

October 10 The Russian Prosecutor General's Office reported preliminary data from a forensic medical examination of the victims - the cause of death of all 14 passengers, whose bodies were discovered during search and rescue operations, was barotrauma. Also, according to information from Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Sergei Fridinsky, carbon monoxide was found in the blood of the victims, which indicates a fire on board the ship.

October 11 Vladimir Rushailo announced the conclusion of the technical commission that investigated the causes of the Tu-154 plane crash: “multiple damage in the form of similar holes indicate defeat Russian plane from outside." At the same time, Rushailo emphasized that “the remains of the plane that crashed into the sea were not found due to the complex structure of the bottom, the aggressive hydrogen sulphide environment and a large layer of silt - up to 6 meters.”

October 12 Press Secretary of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Konstantin Khivrenko, commenting on the preliminary results of the investigation into the incident, admitted that a Ukrainian missile could have caused the death of the Tu-154.

October 13 Vladimir Rushailo said that according to the analysis of the plane's wreckage and holes, an anti-aircraft missile exploded 15 meters above the plane. At a conference in Kyiv, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine apologized to the families and friends of those killed in the crash of the Russian Tu-154 aircraft. “We know that we are involved in the tragedy, although its causes have not yet been fully established.”

Ukrainian expertise

Legal investigation and claims for damages

Initially, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case under the article “Terrorism” in connection with the disaster passenger plane Tu-154 over the Black Sea. . After the publication of the commission’s findings on October 16, 2001, the case was transferred for proceedings to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, and the Russian side officially closed the case.

Immediately after the court decision, the head of the Fund for Assistance to the Families of the Victims, Boris Kalinovsky, and the Belonogov family, who refused to receive financial assistance, filed a lawsuit for compensation for moral damage - the defendants were the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Defense and the State Treasury of Ukraine. The case was heard in Pechersky district court city of Kyiv and on January 30, 2008, compensation was completely denied. The motivational part of the refusal stated that the defendants’ guilt in the disaster was not established by the investigation of the prosecutor’s office, the evidence presented by the plaintiffs is contradictory and cannot be recognized as a basis for satisfying the claim. The losing party did not file an appeal against the court's decision.

Simultaneously with the claim from the relatives of the victims, Siberia Airlines OJSC filed a claim against the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the State Treasury of Ukraine for damages: the amount of the claim included the market value of the destroyed aircraft with additional equipment, costs associated with the investigation of the accident, insurance costs, lost profits due to the loss of the aircraft, and moral damages. The consideration of the case lasted more than seven years and ended in a victory for the defense of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine: based on an additional analysis of the materials of the State Commission of Investigation carried out by the Kiev Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise, the claims were completely rejected. On October 10, 2011, the losing party filed an appeal to the Economic Court of Appeal of Kyiv.

On May 28, 2012, the Kiev Economic Court of Appeal rejected the complaint Russian airline"Siberia" (S7 Airlines) on the decision of the court of first instance, which did not admit the guilt of the Ukrainian military in the crash of the Russian Tu-154 in 2001. On December 11, 2012, the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine upheld the decision. Representatives of the airline announced their intention to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Versions of the causes of the tragedy

Operator error

The S-200 anti-aircraft missile system uses a semi-active guidance system, when the source of radiation is a powerful ground-based radar (“target illumination”), and the missile itself is guided by the signal reflected from the target. In the S-200, there are two main operating modes of the target illumination radar - MHI (monochromatic radiation) and FCM (phase code modulation). The MHI mode is typically used to scan the airspace when searching for targets, which determines the elevation angle, azimuth and radial speed of the target, but does not determine the range to the target. The range is determined in FCM mode, but switching the radar to this mode takes up to 30 seconds and may not occur if there is not enough time.

It is most likely that during firing training with the participation of Ukrainian air defense, which was carried out on October 4, 2001 at Cape Opuk in Crimea, the Ty-154 aircraft accidentally ended up in the center of the intended firing sector of the training target and had a radial speed close to it, as a result of which it was detected by the S-200 radar and accepted as a training target. In conditions of lack of time and nervousness caused by the presence of high command and foreign guests, the S-200 operator did not determine the range to the target and “highlighted” the Tu-154 (located at a range of 250-300 km) instead of an inconspicuous training target (launched from a range of 60 km). Thus, the defeat of the Tu-154 by an anti-aircraft missile was most likely the result not of the missile missing the training target (as is sometimes claimed), but of the obvious aiming of the missile by the S-200 operator at an erroneously identified target. The calculations of the complex did not assume the possibility of such a shooting outcome and did not take measures to prevent it. The size of the range did not ensure the safety of firing air defense systems of such a range. The organizers of the shooting did not take the necessary measures to free up the airspace.

Terrorist attack

Due to the absence of the remains of the plane and the “black boxes”, which were never found, the establishment of absolutely reliable causes of the disaster was considered impossible by the KNIISE examination, but based on the available information, Ukrainian experts suggested that the plane was damaged by an explosive device that could have been located "between the ceiling of the interior of the aircraft" and its body.

Reactions of senior officials of states affected by the plane crash

Russia

Ukraine

Israel

The Ukrainian president’s statement “there are tragedies on a larger scale” shocked the world community. L. D. Kuchma's frivolous statement provoked an angry reaction from official Israel. The press secretary of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon commented on the statement of the Ukrainian president:

When the person killed is not a representative of your people, then it is probably possible to make such academic conclusions. 78 people died, most of whom were Israelis - for us this is the greatest tragedy.

The 16th episode of the series “Aerobatics” (Russia, 2009) contains references to the disaster described: the Russian Il-86 plane was flying from Tel Aviv to Moscow, fell into the zone of Ukrainian air defense training exercises over the Black Sea and was shot down from the S-200 air defense system (in the film, however, the plane was landed in the steppe in the Kuban)

Perpetuation of memory

Ten years later

Notes

I am not me and the rocket is not mine
Plane crash of flight Tu-154 Tel Aviv-Novosibirsk (2001). Help | Inquiries | News feed "RIA Novosti"
"The crash of the Tu-154 plane in the Black Sea occurred due to a terrorist attack"
Tu-154 plane crash in the Black Sea
Chronicle of the tragedy
Western media report that the TU-154 plane was shot down by a missile from Ukraine
Tu-154 was shot down by a Ukrainian missile?
In search of the Ukrainian trace
No bullet holes were found on the fuselage of the Tu-154 - News NEWSru.com
There is practically no hope for Triton
“The cause of death of the TU-154 passengers was barotrauma”
“Secretary of the Russian Security Council Vladimir Rushailo told reporters the conclusion of the technical commission. ..."
“The conclusion of the commission to investigate the death of TU-154: “the plane was hit from the outside””
News NEWSru.com:: Experts deny that the Russian Tu-154, which crashed into the Black Sea in 2001, was shot down by a Ukrainian missile
Experts deny that a Russian plane was hit by a Ukrainian missile in 2001 // RIANovosti Ukraine.
Ukraine sees no reason to initiate a case regarding the Tu-154 crash
The investigation is over, forget it
The Prosecutor General's Office has again taken up the case of the crash of the Russian Tu-154 over the Black Sea
The court ordered the Ukrainian prosecutor's office to resume the case of the Tu-154 plane crash
The Kyiv Economic Court rejected the claim of Siberia Airlines against the Ministry of Defense and the State Treasury of Ukraine
Ukraine denied a claim to the families of those killed in the Tu-154 crash
The decision of the Kyiv court in the case of the Tu-154 shot down in 2001 has been appealed
The Ukrainian military was not involved in the emergency situation with the Tu-154 in 2001, the court confirmed // RIA Novosti, 05/28/2012, 15:27
Khripun, V.; Shagiakhmetov, P. Ukraine will appear before the ECHR. Kommersant (December 12, 2012). Archived from the original on December 16, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2012.

How did the Ukrainian authorities manage to hush up the matter? Why Siberia Airlines never received payments for the downed plane, and what the relatives of the victims and aviation experts say about the tragedy, I found out NTV correspondent Alexey Kvashenkin.

15 years have passed since the disaster. But those who came to the monument to the dead cannot help but feel as if the news of the death of their relatives came only yesterday.

Olga Lebushinskaya, widow: “We still have small children. My son is 18 years old now, but he was 3 years old. My daughter was 11, now she’s 28. How can I forget? No, this will never be forgotten."

October 4, 2001. Military equipment is crawling across Cape Opuk. Ukrainian air defense exercises, joint with the Black Sea Fleet, were carried out on a grand scale: observers from seven countries, journalists. 23 missiles were launched towards the sea. White plumes begin to stretch down, rockets fall into the sea.

The shooting was interrupted. 250 kilometers from the test site, a passenger plane returning to Novosibirsk from Israel disappears from radar.

The investigation materials coldly record the horror of the disaster. At 9:45 a.m. a sound signal came, corresponding to the crew making contact, accompanied by an emotional cry. The plane did not collapse during the explosion; depressurization and ignition of the fuel occurred. The crew tried for another 45 seconds to save the liner engulfed in flames...

The explosion was immediately linked to the exercises, but there were also arguments against it. It was stated, for example, that the Tu-154 was at the limit of the working range of the S-200 missile. Another question is why the plane ended up in the shooting zone in the first place.

Viktor Murakhovsky, member of the expert council of the Board of the Military-Industrial Complex of the Russian Federation: “The main reason is the carelessness and complete violation of the conditions for launching anti-aircraft air defense missiles. That is, there was no provision at all for the creation of a non-flying space closed to civil aviation. Even the theoretical flight range of an anti-aircraft missile.”

When the wreckage of the airliner began to be found in the sea, they discovered something remarkable: the striking elements of the S-200 missile. The version with the error became the main one during the exercises.

Ukrainian President Kuchma later admitted guilt, but with a wording that aroused the indignation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Leonid Kuchma, former President of Ukraine: “We are not the first and not the last. There is no need to make a tragedy out of this. Mistakes happen everywhere, and not only on this scale.”

Retired Defense Minister Kuzmuk also admitted guilt. But then the Ukrainian examination comes to a conclusion that directly contradicts the conclusions of the Interstate Aviation Commission.

Colleagues of the pilots and relatives of the victims came to the cemetery not only to honor the memory. After 15 years, they again ask to return the investigation materials to Russia, to prove the truth, which they do not doubt for a second.

Just as in the story of the Boeing MH-17, shot down in the summer of 2014, Kyiv bluffed and played “ignorant” with the downing of the Russian plane flight Tel Aviv - Novosibirsk on October 4, 2001.

In connection with the announcement by the Netherlands of the “preliminary results” of the investigation into the crash of the Malaysian Boeing, about which Ukraine, which is part of the commission, did not provide any radar data, nor communications between air traffic controllers, nor any other information necessary for the investigation, it can be stated that there is another , the second Ukrainian falsification. And its goal is obvious - to cover up the traces of your own crime.

BLACK THURSDAY

The first similar crime was committed exactly 15 years ago. Then, during an exercise of the Ukrainian air defense forces, instead of a training target, a Ukrainian S-200 missile in the sky over the Black Sea shot down a Tu-154 passenger airliner of the Russian airline Sibir.

The tragedy occurred on October 4, 2001 with a Tu-154 aircraft with tail number RA-85693, which took off from international airport named after David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv, operating flight SBI 1812. All 78 people on board died - 66 passengers and 12 crew members (27 Russian citizens and 51 Israeli citizens).

Kyiv’s attempts to pass off the Tu-154 crash as an “attack of international terrorism” were unsuccessful. And although “black boxes” were not found at the bottom of the Black Sea, a commission of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) found that the destruction of the plane of the Russian Siberia Airlines was caused by the external influence of solid elements with a diameter of about 10 mm. And that the airliner was hit at an altitude of 11 thousand meters by an S-200 anti-aircraft missile launched by Ukrainian air defense forces located on the Crimean Peninsula.

It was indicated that the Tu-154 was shot down unintentionally from the training ground at Cape Opuk during training firing of anti-aircraft missile systems. Apparently, the cause was an error by the air defense system operator, who incorrectly identified the target.

Without meaning to, the Americans also helped. Thanks to information leaks from military sources, within a few hours, US television companies reported: the Russian airliner was shot down by a Ukrainian S-200 air defense missile launched during military exercises.

GAME OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

However, for a long time, Ukraine refused to admit the obvious and denied the involvement of its military personnel in the downing of the plane. And this despite the fact that the very next day after the tragedy, October 5, the Prime Minister of Ukraine stated that the version of a Ukrainian missile hitting a Siberia Airlines plane “has a right to exist.” And on October 12, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, commenting on the preliminary results of the investigation, admitted that the Ukrainian missile “could have been the cause of the death of the Tu-154.”

The next day, October 13, Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexander Kuzmuk apologized to the families and friends of the victims, saying:

“We know that we are involved in the tragedy, although its causes have not yet been fully established.”

Soon after the tragedy, almost the entire leadership of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense “resigned”, including Kuzmuk himself. Apparently, for excessive frankness...

In 2005, Kyiv “reluctantly” paid compensation to the relatives of the victims. But then he again “turned the shafts” 180 degrees and began to “play unconscious.” The conclusions of Ukrainian experts were put forward, one more absurd than the other. They foamed at the mouth and claimed that the S-200 air defense system could not hit the Tu-154 of Siberia Airlines!

In the summer of 2011, a Kyiv court refused to satisfy the claim of the Russian airline Sibir in the case of the crash of a Russian airliner. Proving the “validity” of the Ukrainian experts’ arguments, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine closed the criminal case. In January 2011, the Kiev Court of Appeal determined that IAC investigators “failed to prove that the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian missile.”

Falsifications, forgery, failure to provide data

The reasons for both the first tragedy with the Tu-154 in 2001, and the second with the Malaysian Boeing in 2014, seem quite obvious. The sky over Ukraine in the area of the exercises (in the first case) and in the area of combat operations (in the second) was not closed, and foreign states conducting flights of civilian airliners in this square were not warned of the danger.

Former SBU colonel Sergei Balabanov, who was present at the training ground at Cape Opuk on October 4, 2001, and then led the investigation on the Ukrainian side, admitted after 15 years:

“The civil aircraft of the Russian Sibir Airlines found itself in the firing range of a training target and had a radial speed close to it, as a result of which it was detected by the S-200 air defense system radar and mistakenly taken for the identified target.”

Today, in an attempt to evade responsibility in the story of the Boeing MH-17, Kyiv is using exactly the same techniques as in the situation with the Tu-154 - it engages in falsifications, forgery, and does not provide available data and documents. And all this with the active support of the West.

Both then and now the Kyiv authorities are trying to deny the obvious and deny their involvement in these two tragedies, in the deaths of hundreds of innocent people.

On October 4, 2001, a Siberia Airlines airliner unexpectedly disappeared from tracking radars, flying on the Tel Aviv-Novosibirsk route. After some time, the bodies of some passengers and the wreckage of the plane were discovered in the Black Sea. It later turned out that the liner crashed into the sea. All 78 people on board, most of them Israeli citizens, and crew members were killed. And even 15 years after this tragedy, its exact cause is still unknown.

Firing sector

An initial investigation showed that the crash of the airliner was caused by a Ukrainian missile fired during joint Ukrainian-Russian military exercises in the area. At first, the military denied involvement in this tragedy, then they partially admitted their guilt, and then the conclusions of the Ukrainian examination indicated the innocence of our country. But Ukraine still paid compensation to the relatives of the dead Israelis and Russians.

Immediately after the crash, the Interstate Aviation Committee, which was created by the countries of the post-Soviet space to investigate such disasters, began its investigation into the death of the plane. And according to his conclusion, the Sibir company plane was unintentionally shot down by a Ukrainian S-200 missile fired during a joint Ukrainian-Russian exercise from Cape Opuk in Crimea, which, by the way, was attended by 23 foreign observers.

The Ty-154 aircraft accidentally found itself in the center of the intended firing sector of a training target, as a result of which it was detected by the S-200 radar and accepted as a training target. Given the lack of time and nervousness caused by the presence of high command and foreign guests, the S-200 operator did not double-check this data and pressed “start.” In addition, the organizers of the shooting did not take all measures to clear the airspace in the exercise area. Flights were prohibited only within a radius of 50 km, although the range of destruction of targets with the S-200B complex is 255 kilometers.

And the downed plane itself was in the maintenance area of responsibility air traffic Russian Federation. Ukrainian air traffic services authorities closed for flights air space within its jurisdiction - to the border of the zone of responsibility of the Russian Federation.

"We know that we are involved in the tragedy"

After these conclusions, the head of the Ukrainian defense department, Alexander Kuzmuk, apologized for what happened.

We know that we are involved in the tragedy, although its causes have not yet been fully established,” he said.

But President Leonid Kuchma still dismissed him for this tragedy.

In 2003, Ukraine signed intergovernmental agreements on compensation with Russia and Israel. In accordance with these agreements, Ukraine paid the relatives of the victims: $7.8 million to Russia and $7.5 million to Israel. The payment of compensation was carried out according to the legal procedure ex gratia, that is, without Ukraine admitting its guilt for the downed plane.

This was also the reason that the claim of Siberia Airlines against the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and State Treasury for $15 million was rejected. And the refusal to pay this claim was based on the conclusions of specialists from the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise (KNISE) and the Kharkov Institute of Air Forces named after. Kozhedub.

Experts came to the conclusion that the Sibir company plane could not have been shot down by a Ukrainian missile. The rocket exploded at a distance of 780 meters from the plane, which made its destruction impossible. The “black boxes” were never found, therefore, according to Ukrainian experts, there is no way to reliably determine the causes of the disaster. And based on the available information, Ukrainian experts have suggested that the plane was damaged by an explosive device that could have been located “between the ceiling of the inside of the plane” and its body.

At the same time, an alternative version of the plane’s death appeared. On the day of the tragedy, during the exercise, 23 missiles were fired from Ukrainian and Russian anti-aircraft missile systems, including Russian S-300 air defense systems. According to monitoring data from the Russian radar station "Gelendzhik", 30 seconds before the explosion, the Ukrainian missile was observed at a distance of 50 kilometers from the crash site. That is, in 30 seconds, according to her capabilities, she could not have been at the point of contact with the plane. The maximum distance that a Ukrainian S-200 air defense missile could fly during this time is 36 km. But the Russian S-300 air defense system at the same time was 11 kilometers closer to the plane’s route than the Ukrainian one. And his missile, in terms of its tactical and technical characteristics and speed, could easily cover a distance of 50 kilometers during this time. But this version remained an alternative. At that time, the Ukrainian leadership did not want to spoil relations with either Israel or Russia, so they made a gesture of goodwill by paying compensation to the relatives of the victims without admitting their guilt.

In September 2004, the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine closed the criminal case into the crash, since the investigation did not establish objective data that would reliably indicate that the Tu-154 was shot down by an S-200 missile launched during an exercise by the Ukrainian air defense forces. As a result, the Sibir company, having gone through all possible authorities in Ukraine, did not take the opportunity to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.