Svetlogorsk tragedy: plane crash on a kindergarten. Secret tragedy: a plane fell on a kindergarten From the KP dossier

At 4 p.m. on May 16, 1972, Radio Free Europe from Munich broadcast the following message: “The An-26 military transport aircraft of the Baltic Fleet naval aviation fell on 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 of the USSR Baltic Fleet, flying 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.

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.

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 the 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 rocked 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 ignited by an impact new strength, in a matter of seconds, consumed all living things in its flame. 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 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. 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 blossomed 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 mass grave at the cemetery, not far from the Svetlogorsk-1 railway station. On the day of the funeral, traffic on the roads connecting regional center from Svetlogorsk.

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 dead children and kindergarten staff prohibited burying the pilots in the Svetlogorsk cemetery next to “their victims.” For the same reason, in the temple-chapel in general list those killed in the plane crash there was no place for the eight names of the 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 shores of the Baltic Sea were covered with 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...”

40 years ago, in quiet Svetlogorsk, a military transport An-24 crashed into a kindergarten. 23 children, 3 teachers and 8 crew members died. We met with those who miraculously survived or escaped the disaster.

The tracks were covered overnight

On May 16, 1972, a military transport aircraft of the Baltic Fleet naval aviation took off from Khrabrovo. The pilots were carrying out a planned flight - weather reconnaissance. At Svetlogorsk An-24, trying to determine lower limit cloudy, fell into thick fog. The pilots flew the plane low and at some point, according to eyewitnesses, it touched the Ferris wheel and began to fall, sinking lower and lower, catching the tops of pine trees...

And below there is a school, a kindergarten, and residential buildings. Catastrophe was inevitable. At this moment, the guys had just returned to the kindergarten from a walk. They were sitting in the dining room - lunch was about to be served. One moment claimed the lives of all the children and three teachers...

– I was sitting in the office, then I heard a roar, then children ran in and shouted: “The plane fell near the stadium!” And there my guys did physical education with a teacher. The day is in full swing! “I ran with everyone,” Sergei Popov, who in those years worked as the director of school No. 1 in Svetlogorsk, tells us. “The kindergarten building was on fire, and there were fragments of the fuselage lying right there. People were running and screaming, women were crying. In May, there were already a lot of vacationers in Svetlogorsk - they began to run to the site of the disaster. The chairman of the city executive committee arrived. The first secretary of the city party committee, Zubkov, fainted from what he saw - he was taken to the hospital. I myself was shocked by all this. The plane was flying straight towards the school, but it hit the Ferris wheel and it turned towards the kindergarten. Otherwise it would have fallen on us. At that moment there were at least 200 people in the school.

The regional Ministry of Internal Affairs took control of the case. The crash site was quickly cordoned off and people were not allowed near.

“I remember when the fire had not yet been put out, cartridges suddenly began to explode. Bullets whistled over their heads - apparently the pilots had weapons, says Sergei Popov. – In order not to spread rumors and not to traumatize people, the case was not made public. It wasn’t like that then as it is now. Then everything was hidden. (By the way, the Western media announced the Svetlogorsk disaster very quickly. Soviet newspapers and radio were silent - Ed.).

The fire was cleared up overnight. And everything that remained was leveled, turning it into a neat area, on which by morning a large flowerbed had “grown”. In the morning they began to bring flowers and toys to her. There is no trace left of the kindergarten.

– Despite the fact that there was no information, everyone was only talking about the plane. The city is small, and rumors and news spread quickly,” says Popov.

Got sick and saved

Today Oleg Saushkin drives a respectable car, runs his own business and knows everyone in Svetlogorsk. Then, in 1972, he was six years old, and he was the simplest boy.

We met Oleg at the chapel, which stands on the site of the tragedy on Lenin Street. We went inside and looked at the photographs of the dead children. It’s scary to imagine that among the black and white photographs there could be a portrait of little Olezhka...

– For some reason I really didn’t like this kindergarten. I didn’t like coming here, even though all my friends were here, even my neighbors in the yard. I often ran to my mother to work, and she worked in a sanatorium, and here he is, nearby,” says Saushkin.

That day Oleg did not have to run away from the kindergarten.

“The day before I had a “successful” walk - I fell into an ice hole and caught a cold in my kidneys, and problems began,” he recalls. “I was first treated in Pionersky, then transferred to the regional hospital in Kaliningrad. I was there after the operation. I remember that at some point the whole hospital began to bustle. Everyone started running, cars were driving somewhere, but no one said anything. And only then my mother came to me. I still remember her tears. This is how an everyday accident saved my life.

Another lucky one is Olga Lukeeva. Her mother worked as a nanny in that kindergarten.

– My tonsils were removed, my mother and I were on sick leave. When I was already recovering, my mother took another week of leave at her own expense to stay at home with me,” says Olga. “And I was so tired of going to hospitals and sitting within four walls that every day I begged my mother to go to kindergarten and visit friends. That day I also asked, and my mother kept saying: “Wait, let’s sit at home a little longer.” But I insisted on my own. And mom gave in: “Okay, let’s get ready.” We got dressed and were already on the porch when there was an explosion. It crashed so hard that the ground shook and I was thrown up. I remember when we ran there, there were a lot of people. There was a charred plane and charred books. Doctors and military men were loading something in white sheets onto cars. I was little, but I understood everything. I still remember all the faces of the children, their names, especially those who sat at the same table with me at lunch. Only today they are all gone, but I am left...

Thrown out by explosion

In 1972, on the day of the funeral of the victims, in order to prevent publicity, electric trains to Svetlogorsk were canceled “for technical reasons”, and checkpoints were set up on the roads - the movement of cars to the resort town was limited.

Despite this, several thousand residents of Svetlogorsk and regional cities gathered at the cemetery (some sources indicate 10 thousand people). How they remember local residents, children were buried by the whole city. The funeral procession stretched along the road, a cordon of soldiers did not allow the crowd to approach the small coffins...

The only person who was in the kindergarten that day and survived was nurse Anna Nezvanova. Her little son died in the fire. She herself, as we were told, was standing in the window opening, and at the time of the accident she was thrown out into the street. That's how I was saved. Today Anna Nikitishna does not tell anyone about what happened. We barely managed to find her at her dacha near Svetlogorsk.

“It’s easy for you to say, but it’s hard for me to even remember.” “I don’t want to disturb the memory,” she refused to talk.

There were also those whom God took away from the tragedy. An example of this is the pilot who was supposed to fly on the ill-fated plane. A week before, he was baptized and accepted the faith. And before the flight itself he fell ill - his temperature rose and he was not allowed to take the flight...

FROM THE "KP" DOSSIER

One of the most reliable is the version about a technical malfunction of the aircraft's altimeter. The error in his testimony is explained by the fact that on the eve of the flight, the Navy Air Force decided to replace the altimeters from the Il-14 to the An-24. The performance of the devices after such a replacement was not properly checked. Experiments carried out during the investigation made it possible to establish: the An-24 crew in Svetlogorsk received data with an error of up to 60–70 meters.

1972:in Svetlogorsk, a plane fell on a kindergarten, killing more than 30 children, teachers and crew

Among the first to see the falling plane were the 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 rocked 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. 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. 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.

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 were 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...

“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...

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 dead 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.

Hundreds of children burned alive at school: a terrible tragedy that no one knew about

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a fire in which more than a hundred children died - and which, until the 1990s, no one knew about except their relatives and neighbors. Russian journalists found information about this tragedy in the Chuvash village of Elbarusovo.

A small wooden school appeared in the Chuvash village of Elbarusovo in 1914 - it was built by local entrepreneurs who owned a sawmill.

On November 5, 1961, the school gathered for a concert dedicated to the next anniversary October Revolution. While a group of boys performed a sailor dance on stage, the physics teacher, together with the high school students, started up an electric generator in the next room. They were cold, so they threw several logs into the stove located in the same room (apparently, something like a potbelly stove). The firewood was wet, and the teacher decided to add a little gasoline to make it ignite - but he poured more than necessary. A flame broke out. The fire spread to the desks and floor; Almost immediately the assembly hall where the concert was taking place caught fire. The teacher himself jumped out the window.

The hall was instantly filled with smoke. The walls and ceilings were burning. The crowd rushed to the two windows. The emergency exit was locked and littered with boxes; the windows opened into the room and were covered with desks that had been moved to make room for the festive event.

“First I found Lyusya by a scrap of unburnt dress, then Kolya by a scrap of his underpants. I sewed them for him myself. I didn’t find Tolik and Yurik,” recalled the mother of four dead children. A total of 106 children died in the fire, almost half of them were under seven years old.

Most residents of the USSR did not know about the death of more than a hundred children in a fire in Chuvashia until the early 1990s. A public memorial service for them was held for the first time only in 1991.

Every November 5th, schoolchildren read aloud the names of the victims; there is also a special website dedicated to the tragedy -

Birthday number 4 symbolizes a balanced, hardworking nature, cautious, avoiding risky undertakings. A capable person, with your own ideas, plans, you try to figure everything out on your own, without outside help.

Your motto is reliability, resilience, honesty. You cannot be deceived, but you yourself must avoid self-deception.

4 - the number of seasons, the number of elements, the number of cardinal directions. Number 4 people often look at things from their own special point of view, which allows them to find details hidden from others. At the same time, this often becomes the reason for their disagreement with the majority and clashes with others. They rarely strive for material success, being not very friendly, they are often lonely. Best Relationships They are established with people of numbers 1, 2, 7 and 8.

Lucky day of the week for number 4 is Wednesday

European zodiac sign Taurus

Dates: 2013-04-21 -2013-05-20

The four Elements and their Signs are distributed as follows: Fire(Aries, Leo and Sagittarius), Earth(Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn), Air(Gemini, Libra and Aquarius) and Water(Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces). Since the elements help to describe the main character traits of a person, by including them in our horoscope, they help to form a more complete picture of a particular person.

The characteristics of this element are cold and dryness, metaphysical matter, strength and density. In the Zodiac, this element is represented by the earth's trine (triangle): Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn. The Earth trine is considered a materialistic trine. Principle: stability.
The earth creates forms, laws, gives concreteness, stability, stability. The earth structures, analyzes, classifies, creates the foundation. She is characterized by such qualities as inertia, confidence, practicality, reliability, patience, rigor. In the body, the Earth gives inhibition, petrification through contraction and compression, and slows down the metabolic process.
People whose horoscopes express the element of Earth have a melancholic temperament. These are people of sober reason and prudence, very practical and businesslike. The goal of their life is always real and achievable, and the path to this goal is outlined already in their young years. If they deviate from their goal, it is very slightly and then more due to internal reasons than external ones. People of this trine achieve success thanks to such excellent character traits as perseverance, perseverance, endurance, endurance, determination, and steadfastness. They do not have such imagination and bright, vivid imagination as the signs of the Water trine, they lack utopian ideas, like the signs of Fire, but they persistently pursue their goal and always achieve it. They choose the path of least external resistance, and when obstacles arise, they mobilize their strength and energy to overcome everything that prevents them from achieving their intended goal.
People of the Earth element strive for mastery of matter. The creation of material values brings them true satisfaction, and the results of their work delight their soul. All the goals that they set for themselves must first of all bring them benefit and material gain. If the majority of planets are in the Earth's trine, such principles will apply to all areas of life, including love and marriage.
People with a predominance of the Earth element stand firmly on their feet and prefer stability, moderation, and consistency. They love a sedentary lifestyle, attached to home, property and homeland. Periods of growth and prosperity are followed by crises, which can be long-lasting due to the inertia of the Earth’s trine. It is this inertia that prevents them from quickly switching to new look activities or relationships. This shows their limited ability to adapt to anyone or anything, with the exception of the sign of Virgo.
People with a pronounced Earth element usually choose a profession related to material values, money or business. They often have “golden hands”, they are excellent craftsmen, and can be successful in applied sciences and applied arts. They are patient, submissive to circumstances, sometimes take a wait-and-see attitude, but do not forget about their daily bread. Everything is done with one goal - to improve your physical existence on earth. There will also be concern for the soul, but this will happen from case to case. All of the above is easily achievable for them, provided that their energy is not spent on such negative character traits as ultra-egoism, excessive prudence, self-interest and greed.

Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius. A fixed cross is a cross of evolution, stability and stability, accumulation, concentration of development. He uses the experience of the past. It gives stability, hardness, strength, durability, stability. A person in whose horoscope the Sun, Moon or most of the personal planets are in fixed signs is distinguished by conservatism, inner calm, steadfastness, perseverance, perseverance, patience, endurance, and prudence. He fiercely resists what they try to impose on him, and is able to fight back anyone. Nothing irritates him more than the need to change something, no matter what area of his life it concerns. He loves certainty, consistency, and requires guarantees of reliability in order to be protected from any surprise.
Although he does not have sharp impulses or ease in making decisions that are inherent in other signs, he is distinguished by constancy of opinions, stability in his habits and life positions. He is attached to his work, he can work tirelessly, “until he drops.” He is also constant in his affections for friends and relatives, holds tightly and steadfastly to anyone or anything, be it material value, social status, true friend, a devoted like-minded person or a close and loved one. People of the Fixed Cross are faithful, devoted and reliable; they are knights of their word. You can always rely on their promises. But you only have to deceive them once, and their trust is lost, maybe even forever. People with a fixed cross have strongly expressed desires and passions, they act only from their own motives and always rely on their own instincts. Their feelings, likes and dislikes are unshakable and unshakable. Adversity, failures and blows of fate do not bend them, and any obstacle only strengthens their tenacity and perseverance, as it gives them new strength to fight.

The main formative principles of Taurus are typical manifestations of the Earth element. This is a feminine, “Yin” sign, a sign of the manifestation of the vibration of the planet Venus. Taurus is depicted as a corresponding animal, standing firmly on the Earth. This is a bull, as if emerging from the earth, having a direct connection with it. The Earth gives Taurus strength, on the one hand, the opportunity to feel firmly standing on his feet, and on the other hand, the Earth seems to attract Taurus, not allowing him to break away from himself.

People born under the sign of Taurus are often excellent economists, planners, business executives, and sales workers. Among them, according to world statistics, most of the ministers agriculture, a lot of big bankers, financiers and even politicians. This is all due to the fact that in all matters they are guided by common sense; they are very down-to-earth, practical, and sometimes pragmatic people. If we talk about the negative qualities of Taurus that the Earth gives him, then this is, first of all, conservatism, the desire for stability. But, on the other hand, conservatism is necessary and useful in any serious matter. Therefore, if Taurus shows healthy conservatism in his desires, then this is perfectly reflected in the work he is doing. This same conservatism helps Taurus to prove themselves as lawyers. Their desire to adhere to a previously established order helps them achieve great success both in society and in all areas in which they are involved.
It is necessary to emphasize one important nuance: Taurus then act effectively when they feel solid ground beneath them, that is, when they have a clear life platform in any form (a strong family, a solid position in society, large material savings, inheritance; as well as accumulations of intellectual or energetic nature). Taurus people constantly save up everything in order to function normally. This necessary condition their lives. In itself, hoarding in Taurus is not a bad or good trait, but a natural one. The assessment of “good” or “bad” appears when we begin to analyze how Taurus uses this accumulation. If he uses what he has accumulated for good deeds, for deeds related to the evolution of people, large groups or all of humanity, that’s good. If Taurus has become a grabber, then things cannot be worse.

A small child - Taurus will always save something, either candy wrappers, or pennies, or books, or stamps. Parents must be very attentive to these inclinations of their children so that they do not develop into a quality that corrodes the essence of a person. Sometimes constant need Taurus always has a foundation under his feet and a certain incentive reaches the point of ridiculousness, then he cannot be guided in life by abstract concepts, philosophical concepts, and he definitely needs a clearly and clearly formulated task. By the way, Taurus learn with great difficulty, it is with great difficulty that they acquire knowledge, but once the information has entered their head, then nothing can knock it out. Material incentives in activities and studies are also important for them.
Hoarding is not a bad trait if channeled in the right direction. Top quality Taurus, Earth - this is the desire for strength, for the accumulation of information. Taurus are very patient, they can achieve their goal for a long time until he completes his program. This is an excellent quality - perseverance, the ability to achieve a goal at any cost, when it is connected with constructive deeds, bringing good to people. This is exactly what tall Taurus is set up for. All Taurus are usually characterized by hard work and perseverance in achieving goals. Taurus is also characterized by creative fertility. Most vivid examples- Karl Marx, O. Balzac.

This plane crash, which occurred in May 1972, was kept silent for three decades. Then, in broad daylight, a military plane crashed onto a departmental kindergarten in the resort 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: it childcare facility was considered "thieves". The official position of the parents fully justified the status of the kindergarten: chief of police, chief of the traffic police, first secretary of the city Komsomol committee, employee of the Svetlogorsk court, chief physician...
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 on the day of the disaster). Around noon, an An-24T military transport plane took off from the 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 An-24T aircraft in flight At approximately 12:30, the An-24T fell into dense fog over Svetlogorsk. He was flying at an unacceptably low altitude, and on a steep bank in the resort area his wing caught the top of one of the pine trees and shattered into pieces. After the impact, a massive plane weighing 21 tons flew about 200 meters more and crashed onto the building of a 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 and their 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 a mass grave in a cemetery, not far from 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 Our Lady “Joy of All Who Sorrow” was built on the site of the tragic death of a kindergarten on May 16, 1972.”