The crash of "Ruslan". Will never be forgotten. Drop zone. Loud plane crashes with casualties on the ground Plane crashes onto residential buildings

December 6 will mark 20 years since the plane crash in Irkutsk-II. Then an AN-124 Ruslan military transport plane fell on a residential area. 72 people died, including children from an orphanage whose building was hit by debris. In the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for Irkutsk region On the eve of the mournful date, rescuers and eyewitnesses of the crash gathered to remember the events of twenty years ago.

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It was Saturday. "Ruslan" was operating a flight Moscow - Irkutsk - Vladivostok - Cam Ranh; it was supposed to deliver two fighters to Vietnam. The ship took off from the Irkutsk-II airfield at 14:44. The plane had barely crossed the airfield fence when three out of four engines failed in turn.

On the airfield, firefighters monitored the takeoff according to safety rules. Ten fire brigade vehicles were deployed to accompany the super-heavy aircraft. Sergei Belousov, who then worked as an assistant chief of the eighth fire department, recalls: when the plane took off, something red flashed near the engine, like sparks. At first the ship rose, then it went straight and suddenly began to sink. Sergei Belousov shouted to his partners that they needed to go forward to the plane. The cars started moving, black smoke appeared before their eyes, the rescuers’ radio started working - they were told where “Ruslan” fell. The crews arrived there literally in five minutes.

Such an incident will remain in the memory forever. My wife, child and mother-in-law were 400 meters further from the crash site. I prayed, drove and worried,” says Sergei Belousov. “But our service is such that we had to throw away everything personal. I switched gears and started looking at the hydrant, where and how to install the car, when they told us the address. As we moved, I carried out reconnaissance, looking at the best way to approach and from which direction the wind was blowing. There I already forgot about my loved ones and completely devoted myself to work.

The plane crashed on house number 45 on Grazhdanskaya Street. Debris scattered throughout the area. The tail crashed into a five-story building on Mira Street and damaged it; some parts flew into the building of orphanage No. 1. The spilled kerosene flared up in an instant, and a terrible fire began. Those who miraculously managed to survive at home called for help from open windows and burning balconies.

All eight crew members and 15 passengers of the plane, as well as 49 residents of the area where the aircraft crashed, were killed. The tragedy claimed the lives of 14 children. The plane fell on houses where the families of some of the firefighters who saw off the Ruslan lived. In the 45th house, the family of one of them burned down. Two boys died there; their parents witnessed this horror. Family history in 2007 documentary film The head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Sergei Shoigu, spoke about the plane crash:

They were walking with their parents, decided to go home to take the dog with them, and at that moment the plane.

They also say that in the 45th house on that fateful day there was a wedding, guests were waiting for the bride and groom, but the newlyweds were delayed, and this saved their lives.

Galina Kryukova, who at that time was the director of the orphanage, says: at first they thought that an earthquake had occurred.

It was a dream-hour,” the woman recalls. - The preschool children were sleeping. So they ran out into the street barefoot and undressed. And the day was frosty. And that’s how we carried them on buses.

The children were evacuated to boarding school No. 13. It was impossible to stay in the orphanage, because one half of it burned out, and the other was flooded by firefighters.

Of course, there could have been more victims, but our children went to an event at the art house, someone was at the skating rink. We were just a little lucky that there were few children in the room,” says Galina Kryukova. “First we found two girls burned, and on the fifth day Anya Zernis died. The teacher’s son Makar suffered very badly; he was sent to Moscow, he lived for a month and a half. Rimma Vasilyeva, a girl who today works as a cook in the canteen of an aircraft factory, suffered severe burns. She maintains the relationship, but she does not dare to have a special conversation.

Valery Perfilyev, who was the deputy head of the state fire service that year, is surprised how the plane did not explode. He says there were all the prerequisites for this.

Ruslan was filled with 110 tons, his full filling was 180 tons. Under-refueling of 70 tons means the presence of an explosive mixture in the aircraft. And why it didn’t explode when it fell is completely unclear. Since the explosion did not occur, it means that the area was flooded with kerosene. Kerosene under the snow, kerosene everywhere. What to do? If we begin to withdraw forces and resources and stop extinguishing buildings, the kerosene will immediately flare up. We decided to continue extinguishing and pouring water. Lily intentionally to wash away the remaining kerosene. And they increased their forces and means, although the fire was localized within an hour despite the fact that it was very strong. Until 17:00 we continued to request forces and means, feeling the danger, taking risks. There was no other way out.

The fire was extinguished for more than a day and a half, and it took six days to eliminate the consequences of the disaster. Gennady Faizrakhmanov, who then headed the department of the state fire service, says that the rescuers showed miracles of courage. They worked in the cold, water had to be delivered from the Angara, the disaster area could not provide uninterrupted water supply, so they stretched a six-kilometer line from the river.

After the fire was extinguished, it was necessary to remove the debris and remove the tail from the five-story building. The railway workers provided powerful lighting systems that helped work at night, provided special lifts and ropes, and the builders brought in heavy equipment.

The crash site was guarded by two cordon rings. The second ring was made when the looting began. They put out cadets from the police school, military, and firefighters. Valery Perfilyev recalls that many residents of the area considered it their duty to feed and warm those who worked at the site of the tragedy.

In almost 40 years of service, I have not seen such unity of the population with firefighters, with victims,” says the man. - It was amazing phenomenon. Until the morning, older people stood with tea, offering everything, any services: to warm up at home, to feed, to drink, they brought socks, gloves, some grandmother there gave me white gloves, I said: “Where do I want the white ones?” I wanted to refuse, but she told me that I had to put it on right in front of her.

The black boxes of "Ruslan" were seriously damaged by fire, so restore the full picture tragic events failed. Officially, the cause of engine failure was overloaded aircraft, but different years There were different versions of why the ship could have fallen. For example, there was an assumption that during takeoff one of the passengers made a call on a Chinese radiotelephone and this affected the operation of the equipment. There was also a version that the kerosene had a high water content, it froze, and the ice clogged the fuel filters.

House No. 45 on Grazhdanskaya Street was demolished immediately after the tragedy, along with the burnt-out wooden barracks. The orphanage was reconstructed in 1999, and a temple was built at the site of the plane crash. A capsule with memories of people who lost their relatives and friends in the disaster was placed at its base. Every year on December 6, a civil memorial service for the victims is held in the temple. Always at the same time - at 14:45.

On December 6, 1997, the An-124 Ruslan military transport aircraft crashed into a residential area of ​​Irkutsk immediately after takeoff due to the sequential failure of three of its four engines.

The plane took off from the Irkutsk-2 airfield on Saturday at 14.40 local time (09.40 Moscow time). On board were two Su-27 fighters, assembled by the Irkutsk Aviation Production Association, which were to be delivered to Vietnam.

Within less than half a minute after the plane took off from the runway, the first and third engines switched off, after which the same thing happened with the second engine. An attempt to keep the aircraft on one remaining engine, undertaken by the crew under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Fedorov, was unsuccessful, and the aircraft, entering a right roll, crashed onto house No. 45 on Grazhdanskaya Street. The tail of the plane significantly hit house No. 120 on Mira Street, and the remaining debris hit the building of an orphanage located nearby. The severe consequences of the disaster were largely caused by the instantly ignited dozens of tons of aviation fuel. A few minutes after the disaster, fire trucks arrived at the scene of the disaster and began to evacuate people. Firefighters carried twenty-seven people out of the burning apartments.

On the night of December 7, 1997, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Viktor Chernomyrdin and the Minister for emergency situations RF Sergei Shoigu, operational group of the Ministry of Emergency Situations - twenty-two rescuers and with them four search dogs.

By the morning of December 7, 1997, the fire was localized, but individual sources, mainly building ceilings and unburned fuel, were still smoking and periodically caught fire. Rescuers began clearing the rubble and removing the bodies of the dead. The homeless people were temporarily housed in nurseries. A collection of things and products from the population has been organized.

The tail section of the plane, which remained virtually undamaged, rested on the building adjacent to the burnt house and posed a threat to working rescuers. On the afternoon of December 7, it was decided to drop the tail of the plane to the ground. The remains of the burnt houses had to be completely demolished.

The crew's internal conversations were not preserved - both flight recorders were at the epicenter of the fire and were severely damaged. The commission never came to a clear conclusion regarding engine failure. The reasons for their switching off, both using objective control means and experimentally, could not be definitively established. At the same time, experts have repeatedly expressed an opinion about the design shortcomings of the D-18T engines manufactured by the Ukrainian Motor Sich OJSC (these engines were installed on the deceased An-124).

After the disaster, Minister of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu announced that it was not the crew’s fault. The plane was piloted by experienced, well-trained pilots. The ship's commander, Vladimir Fedorov, had 2,800 flight hours, 110 of which he flew in 1997. Co-pilot Vladimir Ivanov spent 4,020 hours in the air, of which 240 hours were in 1997.

In 1999, in Irkutsk, on Mira Street, on the site of one of the destroyed houses, the Church of the Nativity of Christ was erected, the first service of which was dedicated to the memory of the victims.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

At the end of 1997, a terrible plane crash occurred - the crash of an An-124 in Irkutsk. On Saturday afternoon, December 6, 1997, a huge military transport aircraft An-124-100 “Ruslan” took off from the local airfield Irkutsk-2, loaded with 2 Cy-27UBK fighters, which were assembled at the city’s aircraft plant, and they had to be transported under a contract to Vietnam.

The plane was supposed to fly through Vladivostok to Cam Ranh (Vietnam). Just a few seconds after the giant took off, three of the four engines of the Ruslan broke down: first the first and third failed, then the second. It was not possible to reboot the engines, and on one engine the plane simply tilted and began to fall like a stone into a populated area.

The exact cause of the disaster is still not known.

The runway of the experimental airport Irkutsk-2 is located within the city limits. The village (microdistrict) of aircraft manufacturers has long been accustomed to the fact that planes fly low over their heads.

Chronicle of events To The An-124 accident in Irkutsk took just three dozen seconds, but the consequences were terrifying. December 6, calm, temperature - 20 o, visibility 3 kilometers. At 14:42 local time, the aircraft weighing 350 tons took off. A multi-hour flight to Vietnam lies ahead. As soon as the plane takes off from the ground, the third engine begins to “sneeze” flames. Almost immediately after takeoff, the dispatcher receives a message that three engines of the Ruslan failed, the first in three seconds at an altitude of five meters, six seconds later the third engine failed at an altitude of 22 meters and then the second stops.

It is impossible to restart them - the power plant has completely stalled. Ahead of the course are densely populated residential high-rise buildings, a kindergarten and an orphanage in an aircraft manufacturing microdistrict. The ship's commander is trying to get the plane to a non-residential area, to protect the people who stayed at home on the day off. But this is impossible due to the Ruslan being overloaded with fighters, the total mass of which is forty tons.

Due to the deep roll, the plane falls like a stone. Under the wing there is a wooden orphanage, to which he clings. The giant turns 180 degrees. The doomed "Ruslan" with all its might falls on the five-story residential building No. 45 on the street. The civilians instantly turned it into ruins, and only a few managed to survive in the house. A wedding was held in that house; no one survived the celebration.

From the impact, the plane breaks into two parts and falls with its tail onto house No. 120 on the street. Mira. The remaining fragments of the plane “go to” the orphanage. The An-124's fuel tanks were filled to the maximum; the aircraft was being prepared for a long flight. As soon as the Ruslan fell apart, 180 tons of fuel splashed out and burst into flames. Everything around is on fire - the ground, houses, trees...

Those who survived the plane strike were now fighting for their lives to escape the fire. Someone even jumped from the fifth floor. The shock wave was so strong that it broke windows in houses within a radius of one kilometer. Fuel also got into the orphanage, the wiring caught fire, and three children could not be saved.

Because it was a day off, a group of children were in the pool, some of the children were at a concert in the cultural center. Who knows what would have happened if it had been a weekday - perhaps there would have been much more victims.

Almost within a few minutes, rescue services are at the scene of the incident, the area is cordoned off, people are evacuated from nearby houses, assistance is provided to the victims, and fires are put out. There is no time to deploy heavy equipment; firefighters use ordinary lightweight ladders in order to have time to save at least someone from the fire. Many people ran out in panic onto the balcony, into the very epicenter of the fiery “tornado”; 27 people were saved.

Rescue work was underway at the scene of the plane crash, not only firefighters and ambulances were involved, but also military and emergency services of Russia, cadets of the Higher School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Irkutsk. And a few hours after the An-124 Ruslan crash, a task force arrived in Irkutsk with the head of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, Sergei Shaigu.

After 12 hours, they finally managed to put out the flames, and by the morning of the 7th, the fire was almost under control, mostly smoke remained, and individual ceilings of houses and the remains of unburned fuel periodically flared up. Those who managed to escape were mostly residents of the house whose windows faced the side opposite to the fire whirlwind. The tail of the plane, which was practically undamaged and rested on the building of house No. 120, posed a threat to the rescue services. That same day they decided to drop him to the ground.

The rescue work lasted four days and did not stop for a minute, although by the end of the operation it was clear that there were no longer anyone alive under the melted remains of the houses.

The children from the orphanage, who were taken out into the street almost half-naked in thirty-degree frost, were helped by residents of nearby houses. They dressed, fed, warmed, and left for the night.

Consequences of the tragedy

The damaged houses were completely demolished, and the Church of the Nativity of Christ was built on the site of the disaster in 1999. This terrible plane crash took the lives of more than seventy people, eight of them were the crew of the plane, fifteen were passengers, the rest of the dead were on the ground, including fourteen children. More than seven dozen families were left homeless.

Aircraft information

An-124 aircraft have always been considered reliable and safe aircraft. Unpretentious and easy to operate, before the tragedy there were only two accidents in 30 years with these aircraft, and both times were the fault of the flight crew. This aircraft:

• created in 1985
• Transferred to the Air Force of the Soviet Union in 1988.
• By the time of the disaster, he had spent 1034 hours in the air.

Airplane crew

The entire crew team received the Order of Courage posthumously by decree of the President of Russia in 2003. In the village of Seshcha there are memorial plaques with biographies of the aircraft crew.

• Aircraft commander V.A. Fedorov.
• Assistant commander M.Yu. Bryukhanov.
• Pilot-instructor V.V. Ivanov.
• Two navigators A.I. Batyaev and A.A. Pristensky.
• Three flight engineers I.S. Bessonov, V.P. Olefir and I.I. Artyukhin.
• Flight operator A.A. Voroshilov.

Investigation

The causes of the disaster are still unknown, and it is not clear who is to blame. Two recorders burned in a terrible fire, the team’s conversations could not be restored, and what was recovered was of no value. Last seconds crew are shrouded in mystery. However, at that distant time a special commission was assembled to investigate the incident.

The officially accepted version of the tragedy is the failure of 3 engines. But it was never possible to find out the reason for this. They tried to clarify the situation experimentally, drawing conclusions from known facts and collecting information from the scene of the event. One of the versions is that the vessel was overloaded. Someone blames the engines themselves, which were manufactured at Motor Sich OJSC in Ukraine. Someone suggested that the surging of the control system was caused by low-quality fuel, which contained a large amount of water, resulting in the formation of ice that clogged the fuel filters.

There is a version, which was voiced in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets, that the engine failure occurred due to a radio call on a Chinese phone made from the plane. The ship's electronics went wrong, and the consequences were irreversible.

None of the versions could be confirmed or refuted.

In contact with

In 1997, a huge tragedy occurred - a plane fell on a residential building. The victims were 72 people, mostly those who were in their apartments at that moment, including 14 children. More than 70 families were left without roofs over their heads. The An-124 “Ruslan” aircraft, with its engines turned off and having failed for an unknown reason, crashed in the aircraft manufacturing village of Irkutsk-II, completely destroyed. On board were two SU-27 attack aircraft, sold to Vietnam for $30,000,000 each, and a crew of 16 pilots and 30 technicians. The board was fully filled with fuel, the total volume of which exceeded 140 tons.

1 minute 20 seconds after takeoff, the crew was informed of a flame visible from the left engine, and at the same time the pilots informed the controller about the failure of two left engines. Ahead of Ruslan's course were high-rise buildings where there were thousands of people. From a height of 66 meters, the plane began to descend and the crew did everything possible to avoid crashing into high-rise buildings. The pilots tried to reach the vacant lot and not hit residential buildings, but “Ruslan” tilted to the left and at the moment of the fall the left wing caught a wooden two-story building, causing the plane to turn around and it fell onto a four-story brick building, while hitting a nearby orphanage, in which it was quiet time. Fuel from the tanks spilled onto the ground and immediately caught fire. 2 girls suffocated, several more children ended up in the burn center. The damaged building and the backyard of the adjacent school were immediately engulfed in flames. Few managed to escape on their own. A few minutes after the disaster, the first fire trucks arrived at the scene of the disaster - firefighters carried 27 people out of the burning apartments. In the “Irkutsk history” this circumstance turned out to be fatal. According to eyewitnesses, the Ruslan engines began to emit pops, splashes, and flames even on takeoff. However, it was no longer possible to cancel the takeoff. According to eyewitnesses, the plane fell completely silently.

The fire was only put out by the next morning, but individual fires were still smoking and periodically catching fire. After some time, the records of the three found “black boxes” were deciphered - according to these data, the plane crashed because three engines failed at the same time. The crew was not found to be at fault for the accident - the plane was piloted by experienced and trained specialists, preventative maintenance of the plane was carried out in the same year, and the plane has not yet flown since the start of service. According to the main version, the cause of the disaster was the car being in the cold with empty engines. As a result, the water contained with the fuel froze and turned into ice. After starting the engine, the ice plugs that formed when the engines were put into operating mode broke off and jammed the mechanisms. As a result, the engines failed.

Others attribute the causes of the disaster to weather conditions. The temperature was very low and the air was completely calm, which means that the air was saturated with smog and exhaust fumes from the city and contained little oxygen. As a result, a difference in temperature and air composition was created at the border of the airfield and the city, precisely on the take-off trajectory of the aircraft. In the presence of these circumstances, flame failure in the engines could occur and they would stop.

However, any disaster is most often the result not of one specific cause, but of a whole chain. On January 14, 1998, 40 days after the tragedy, Irkutsk residents held a memorial service for those killed in the An-124 Ruslan crash. Relatives and neighbors of the victims, victims, and representatives of the regional and city administration gathered at the memorial sign in Irkutsk-II.

Today, January 16, at 7.31 in the Chui region, near the village of Zhany-Zher, where the dachas are located, a Boeing 747-400F cargo plane crashed while flying Hong Kong - Bishkek - Istanbul. There were 4 people on board. At the moment, more than 30 people are already known to have died because the plane fell on residential buildings. Unfortunately, this is not the only case where planes crash into busy areas, resulting in numerous casualties. Kaktus with the assistance of our partner Open Asia Online, we have collected the largest such plane crashes in one material.

RUSSIA

A terrible tragedy happened on December 6, 1997 in Irkutsk. The An 124 Ruslan military transport aircraft crashed into a residential area immediately after takeoff due to the sequential failure of three of its four engines.

The collapsed ship hit several high-rise buildings, as well as the building of an orphanage. The tragedy claimed the lives of 72 people, 23 people were on board the plane, the rest of the dead, including 14 children, were on the ground. More than 70 families were left homeless.

"Ruslan" carried two fighters on board, which were assembled to order for Vietnam. In addition, the carrier was filled to capacity with fuel, which caused a large-scale fire. By the time fire crews arrived, the surviving people were rushing about on balconies and in open windows. Rescuers had to deploy ladders and remove people.

USA

On December 9, 2014, a private plane crashed into a house and killed 6 people. The Embraer EMB-500 twin-engine jet crashed about a kilometer short of Montgomery Airport. Three people on board were killed, as well as a woman and two children in the two-story house on which it collapsed. The debris damaged several buildings. A fire started in two neighboring houses.

Nine people died when a plane crashed into a residential building in Akron, Ohio, on November 11, 2015—two pilots and seven passengers. None of those on the ground at the time of the disaster were injured - the house was empty.

The 10-seat Hawker H25 business jet took off from Dayton and planned to land at Akron Fulton Airfield, but crashed three kilometers away. When he fell, he broke the wires of a utility power line. After the plane crashed into a residential building, it caught fire and fell apart.

INDONESIA

On June 21, 2012, a Fokker-27 plane with military personnel on board crashed into residential buildings in the vicinity of Jakarta.

As a result of the disaster, nine people were killed and more than 30 were injured. Eyewitnesses to the incident heard the roar of engines, and then an explosion occurred. The plane damaged 8 houses residential complex, located near Halim airport. Six of the seven soldiers on board and three people on the ground were killed, and 35 were taken to hospital.

130 people died in the crash of a military transport plane in residential area city ​​of Medan on the island of Sumatra. The tragedy occurred on June 30, 2015. While falling, the Hercules C-130 hit several buildings. All 113 people on the plane died - military personnel and their families. The remaining victims were residents who found themselves at the crash site.

Tragic coincidence. In 2005, a passenger Boeing 737, taking off from international airport Medana also collapsed on residential buildings. In the same area. Among the 143 victims of the disaster, 30 people were on the ground. Ten years later, the tragedy, which had hardly been forgotten, was repeated exactly.

JAPAN

On July 26, 2015, a five-seater plane crashed in a residential area in Japan. The crash occurred at a distance of 1.8 kilometers from the takeoff site. A woman died at the scene of the disaster. Two passengers did not survive, three were injured. The fire involved five residential buildings and several cars.

BRAZIL

7 people were killed when a plane crashed into a residential building in northern Sao Paulo. On March 20, 2016, the SA-9 aircraft was flying from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro. It crashed almost immediately after takeoff. Eyewitnesses said that there were noticeable difficulties in gaining altitude, as the aircraft was flying too low. All the dead were on board the plane; the residents of the house managed to escape.

INDIA

On June 13, 2016, a MiG-27 fighter crashed in northwestern India, hitting residential buildings during the fall.

The bomber was on a training flight and crashed 5 kilometers from the Jodhpur Air Force base. As a result, two houses were destroyed and more than 10 cars were wrecked. Three people were injured, all local residents. Both pilots flying the plane managed to eject.