How hijacked planes in the Soviet Union
Exciting Russia this week capture attempt the plane following the Surgut-Moscow flight, fortunately, turned out to be not a tragedy, but a farce. There were no victims, and the unfortunate hijacker detained without a single shot could not even plainly explain what kind of hell he needed in Afghanistan, where he was trying to direct the unfortunate “board”. And actually, his mental health raises serious questions. It must be said that such incidents in our country have long been classified as hooligan antics of inadequate citizens. However, this was not always the case. Many have fresh memories in which the hijacking of planes was a huge problem for Aeroflot and collected a plentiful bloody harvest, and civilian pilots opposing them received military orders. Are you curious how it all happened?
The first, so to say “officially recorded” hijacking of an aircraft in the USSR, the majority considers the seizure in autumn 1970 of a passenger “board” following the flight “Batumi-Sukhumi”, carried out by father and son Brazinskas. It was then that the whole country recognized the name of the flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko, who at the critical moment covered her passengers from the sawn-off shotgun of a furious terrorist. No one was killed except her, but crew members were injured. An-24 safely landed in Turkey, where the hijackers, who immediately surrendered to the local police, were so eager.
The plane and passengers were returned to the USSR without argument, but they refused to give out the terrorists outright - the United States got involved and Ankara zealously “took it under the hood”. In America, the Brazilian, having served a ridiculously long time behind bars, ended up in the end. However, here the principle fully worked out: “God marks the assault” - their life in the “land of dreams” ended with the fact that the son killed his father before dumbbell death and was on the bunk for a very long time. But in the USA ...
The fact is that the tragedy of 1970 was the first successful hijacking of a Soviet passenger plane. Attempts to do this began much earlier - back in 1954. Well, yes - it was worth Stalin to die, and everything went wrong ... But seriously, then a couple armed with very real pistols tried to steal Li-2 from Tallinn to Finland at the beginning of this year. True, they were not lucky to run into a front-line soldier who was in the crew, who went hand-to-hand with them, despite the four bullets received at point-blank range. The criminals were neutralized by the crew. From the wounds received, the fearless steward Timofei Romashkin died. He, who in reality became the first victim of aircraft hijackers in our country, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. Pilots awarded the Order of the Red Star.
In the same year, a completely unique “hijacking” of the aircraft happened, which had no analogues in its anecdotal character. The “terrorist”, in the role of Vladimir Polyakov, the flight mechanic of the Il-12 who was unauthorized to fly into the air, did not move at all political motives and not even a desire to leave the country. Firmly "taking on his chest" before the flight of alcohol from the tank of the system designed to prevent icing of the aircraft, this "kamikaze" decided to ram the house in which his ex-wife lived, to whom he continued to burn with ardent love! Inexplicably taking off alone, the flying Othello spent four hours in the air, circling over an object intended for attack. The darkness and increased alcohol content in the body prevented him from accurately determining the location of the “traitor's” window, and Polyakov did not want to “punish” the innocent during the war.
By this time, the whole of Novosibirsk, where it was happening, was already "standing on its ears." The ill-fated house was evacuated, and fighters took to the air, the pilots of which received an unequivocal order - to bring down this abnormal, but not over the city! Polyakov, however, not only easily left his colleagues hunting him, but also managed to land the plane without a scratch. The ace-stunner sentenced to be shot was personally saved by Ilyushin, who learned what miracles he worked on his brainchild. The pilot was released only three years later. In those days - incredible softness ....
Attempts to capture aircraft continued in the 60s. None of them were successful, and courageous crew members who were not afraid to engage in battle with armed hijackers were awarded at least three orders of the Red Banner of Battle. For the same period of time, there is the only case when a passenger plane, which tried to leave the USSR, was destroyed by the fighters raised on alarm. In the “perestroika” press, at one time there were terrible “horror stories” about a certain “top secret instruction” that came either from the KGB or directly from the Central Committee of the CPSU. Such, allegedly ordered "to bring down all the aircraft, illegally trying to leave the country." In reality, the AN-2, which unexpectedly took a course from Tuapse towards Turkey, was torn apart from the MiG-17 cannons by virtue of the fact that it was precisely known that the pilot-hijacker on board was completely alone. In cases where there were passengers in the hijacked planes and the crew taken hostage, nothing like this has ever been done.
The real "epidemic" of hijacking hit the country in the 70s. And then it's time to talk about its reasons. As you know, leaving anyone from the USSR to the countries of the West for permanent residence (and even for a short time) to anyone and when they wanted to was completely impossible. And some - really wanted ... Regularly there were those who saw the seizure of an airplane for themselves as the only way to leave the hated Motherland. Do the “horrors of the communist regime” (for the most part, which existed only in the inflamed imagination of the hijackers) justify their actions? In my deep conviction - not in the least. To do what the whole world qualifies as terrorism, endanger the lives of innocent people, scoff at them and kill them ... But what excuse can there be at all ?!
One of the most bloody and tragic stories of theft - the famous “Ovechkin case” gives an idea of how perverted and sick the consciousness of this type was. What did Ninel Ovechkina not live in the Union ?! "Mother Heroine", the leader of the "Simeon Simeons" jazz ensemble, which consisted exclusively of her sons ... She and her relatives, you see, believed that they were "not appreciated" in their homeland, but the "Simeons" should be in the West - instantly covered with flowers, and, of course, pleasantly crispy dollars. Having flown on a tour to Japan and plucked a standing ovation there, the family made the final decision: “We must bring it down!” As a result, on March 8, 1988, ten Ovechkins boarded a Tu-154 aircraft in Irkutsk with two sawn-off shotguns and improvised bombs hidden in double bass cases.
Instead of coveted Finland, they were waiting for the military airfield of the tiny Veschev, a senseless and merciless assault that ended in an explosion and fire of the aircraft. In the finale of the tragedy, Ninel demanded that the eldest offspring, who had previously killed the flight attendant in cold blood, shoot her and three other older sons. Dmitry Ovechkin performed everything exactly, after which he shot himself. So the Simeons passed away, dragging four more completely uninvolved people ...
It cannot be said that the authorities of the USSR did not react to everything that was happening. Another question is that this was done rather slowly and clumsily. Only in 1973 did they bother to introduce an article on liability for hijacking an aircraft into the Soviet criminal code. Only after the story of the Brazinskas, the first metal detectors began to appear at airports, passengers began to be checked for the presence of dangerous objects, and pilots were armed with pistols. In the same years, the secret services of the USSR developed a special operational plan for the release of captured aircraft "Thunder" (later - "Nabat"). And also, the Consolidated Operational Military Detachment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the famous anti-terrorist group "Alpha" of the KGB of the USSR were formed, which subsequently had to deal with air hijackers more than once - with extremely unpleasant consequences for the latter.
The State Security Committee later reproached some of the fact that he deliberately did everything to conceal every case of hijacking. Like, they were afraid "for the honor of the uniform." In fact, the KGB’s actions aimed at limiting the dissemination of such information was, first of all, a huge practical sense. Such stories, even submitted from the most “correct” point of view, as in the case of the feat of Nadezhda Kurchenko, alas, became an example for more and more madmen who were torn “over the hill” at any cost. As for the "top secret" operational plans of the special services, this is a completely different story. In at least two cases, domestic terrorists used those ... as a textbook!
The first example is the capture of Tu-134 in Tbilisi, made in 1983 by a group of seven young people. Using great connections at the Georgia-Film film studio, these types of students studied in the most detailed way the training tape shot exclusively for official use about actions according to the Nabat plan — that is, exactly when the plane was hijacked. Subsequently, this, however, did not help them. They never got to any Turkey. Alpha fighters shot two during the assault and shot three more later. But only before that they managed to kill five passengers and crew members. During the assault, by the way, no one was injured except the terrorists themselves.
The second capture, the target of which was also the Tu-134, only three years later and in Ufa, is even more revealing. It was carried out by servicemen of one of the units of the Internal Troops of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, who had just undergone special training according to the Nabat plan! Having seized not only machine guns in the “arms” of their own unit, but, in addition, a machine gun and even a sniper rifle, these idiots, believing in their own success, rushed to the airfield. On the way, they ran into a police outfit - and shot him in cold blood. As a result, a group of hijackers reduced to two people managed to get to the plane and capture it, while killing two passengers. Naturally, they did not have a chance against the arrived Alpha. One was killed during the assault, the second was later executed ...
Be that as it may, the number of aircraft hijacking attempts in the USSR remained stably high. Statistics, as you know, knows everything. She testifies that in the Soviet Union about a hundred attempts were made to seize aircraft. Successful can be attributed to approximately every fourth of them. 17 hijackers were killed in the process of hijacking or during the ensuing attack on the plane. Which is much worse - the number of civilian aircraft crew members and their passengers killed during the same time is 111 ...
The decrease in the number of such incidents (and, in particular, cases when terrorists did their best) by the mid-to-late 80s was clearly promoted by the growth of professionalism of the domestic special services, fighters of their special units. Improved weapons and special tools used to neutralize terrorists. It was becoming more and more dangerous to play such games ... And then the year 1991 came, and there was no need to capture planes. Well, who will risk their lives if anyone who does not like living where they were born today can easily get a visa, buy a ticket - and roll from Russia on all four sides?
Messages about attempts to hijack planes today in fact most often turn out to be stories of debauches of psychos or alcoholics, unfortunately, on board those. Captures of planes, alas, are not a thing of the past - however, all over the world they remain the destiny of perhaps the most radical terrorist groups. I would like to believe that our special services are not relaxing - and if the threat is more serious than those who decided to fly and it is not known why they are “inadequate” in Kabul, they will be able to react properly.
The first, so to say “officially recorded” hijacking of an aircraft in the USSR, the majority considers the seizure in autumn 1970 of a passenger “board” following the flight “Batumi-Sukhumi”, carried out by father and son Brazinskas. It was then that the whole country recognized the name of the flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko, who at the critical moment covered her passengers from the sawn-off shotgun of a furious terrorist. No one was killed except her, but crew members were injured. An-24 safely landed in Turkey, where the hijackers, who immediately surrendered to the local police, were so eager.
The plane and passengers were returned to the USSR without argument, but they refused to give out the terrorists outright - the United States got involved and Ankara zealously “took it under the hood”. In America, the Brazilian, having served a ridiculously long time behind bars, ended up in the end. However, here the principle fully worked out: “God marks the assault” - their life in the “land of dreams” ended with the fact that the son killed his father before dumbbell death and was on the bunk for a very long time. But in the USA ...
The fact is that the tragedy of 1970 was the first successful hijacking of a Soviet passenger plane. Attempts to do this began much earlier - back in 1954. Well, yes - it was worth Stalin to die, and everything went wrong ... But seriously, then a couple armed with very real pistols tried to steal Li-2 from Tallinn to Finland at the beginning of this year. True, they were not lucky to run into a front-line soldier who was in the crew, who went hand-to-hand with them, despite the four bullets received at point-blank range. The criminals were neutralized by the crew. From the wounds received, the fearless steward Timofei Romashkin died. He, who in reality became the first victim of aircraft hijackers in our country, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. Pilots awarded the Order of the Red Star.
In the same year, a completely unique “hijacking” of the aircraft happened, which had no analogues in its anecdotal character. The “terrorist”, in the role of Vladimir Polyakov, the flight mechanic of the Il-12 who was unauthorized to fly into the air, did not move at all political motives and not even a desire to leave the country. Firmly "taking on his chest" before the flight of alcohol from the tank of the system designed to prevent icing of the aircraft, this "kamikaze" decided to ram the house in which his ex-wife lived, to whom he continued to burn with ardent love! Inexplicably taking off alone, the flying Othello spent four hours in the air, circling over an object intended for attack. The darkness and increased alcohol content in the body prevented him from accurately determining the location of the “traitor's” window, and Polyakov did not want to “punish” the innocent during the war.
By this time, the whole of Novosibirsk, where it was happening, was already "standing on its ears." The ill-fated house was evacuated, and fighters took to the air, the pilots of which received an unequivocal order - to bring down this abnormal, but not over the city! Polyakov, however, not only easily left his colleagues hunting him, but also managed to land the plane without a scratch. The ace-stunner sentenced to be shot was personally saved by Ilyushin, who learned what miracles he worked on his brainchild. The pilot was released only three years later. In those days - incredible softness ....
Attempts to capture aircraft continued in the 60s. None of them were successful, and courageous crew members who were not afraid to engage in battle with armed hijackers were awarded at least three orders of the Red Banner of Battle. For the same period of time, there is the only case when a passenger plane, which tried to leave the USSR, was destroyed by the fighters raised on alarm. In the “perestroika” press, at one time there were terrible “horror stories” about a certain “top secret instruction” that came either from the KGB or directly from the Central Committee of the CPSU. Such, allegedly ordered "to bring down all the aircraft, illegally trying to leave the country." In reality, the AN-2, which unexpectedly took a course from Tuapse towards Turkey, was torn apart from the MiG-17 cannons by virtue of the fact that it was precisely known that the pilot-hijacker on board was completely alone. In cases where there were passengers in the hijacked planes and the crew taken hostage, nothing like this has ever been done.
The real "epidemic" of hijacking hit the country in the 70s. And then it's time to talk about its reasons. As you know, leaving anyone from the USSR to the countries of the West for permanent residence (and even for a short time) to anyone and when they wanted to was completely impossible. And some - really wanted ... Regularly there were those who saw the seizure of an airplane for themselves as the only way to leave the hated Motherland. Do the “horrors of the communist regime” (for the most part, which existed only in the inflamed imagination of the hijackers) justify their actions? In my deep conviction - not in the least. To do what the whole world qualifies as terrorism, endanger the lives of innocent people, scoff at them and kill them ... But what excuse can there be at all ?!
One of the most bloody and tragic stories of theft - the famous “Ovechkin case” gives an idea of how perverted and sick the consciousness of this type was. What did Ninel Ovechkina not live in the Union ?! "Mother Heroine", the leader of the "Simeon Simeons" jazz ensemble, which consisted exclusively of her sons ... She and her relatives, you see, believed that they were "not appreciated" in their homeland, but the "Simeons" should be in the West - instantly covered with flowers, and, of course, pleasantly crispy dollars. Having flown on a tour to Japan and plucked a standing ovation there, the family made the final decision: “We must bring it down!” As a result, on March 8, 1988, ten Ovechkins boarded a Tu-154 aircraft in Irkutsk with two sawn-off shotguns and improvised bombs hidden in double bass cases.
Instead of coveted Finland, they were waiting for the military airfield of the tiny Veschev, a senseless and merciless assault that ended in an explosion and fire of the aircraft. In the finale of the tragedy, Ninel demanded that the eldest offspring, who had previously killed the flight attendant in cold blood, shoot her and three other older sons. Dmitry Ovechkin performed everything exactly, after which he shot himself. So the Simeons passed away, dragging four more completely uninvolved people ...
It cannot be said that the authorities of the USSR did not react to everything that was happening. Another question is that this was done rather slowly and clumsily. Only in 1973 did they bother to introduce an article on liability for hijacking an aircraft into the Soviet criminal code. Only after the story of the Brazinskas, the first metal detectors began to appear at airports, passengers began to be checked for the presence of dangerous objects, and pilots were armed with pistols. In the same years, the secret services of the USSR developed a special operational plan for the release of captured aircraft "Thunder" (later - "Nabat"). And also, the Consolidated Operational Military Detachment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the famous anti-terrorist group "Alpha" of the KGB of the USSR were formed, which subsequently had to deal with air hijackers more than once - with extremely unpleasant consequences for the latter.
The State Security Committee later reproached some of the fact that he deliberately did everything to conceal every case of hijacking. Like, they were afraid "for the honor of the uniform." In fact, the KGB’s actions aimed at limiting the dissemination of such information was, first of all, a huge practical sense. Such stories, even submitted from the most “correct” point of view, as in the case of the feat of Nadezhda Kurchenko, alas, became an example for more and more madmen who were torn “over the hill” at any cost. As for the "top secret" operational plans of the special services, this is a completely different story. In at least two cases, domestic terrorists used those ... as a textbook!
The first example is the capture of Tu-134 in Tbilisi, made in 1983 by a group of seven young people. Using great connections at the Georgia-Film film studio, these types of students studied in the most detailed way the training tape shot exclusively for official use about actions according to the Nabat plan — that is, exactly when the plane was hijacked. Subsequently, this, however, did not help them. They never got to any Turkey. Alpha fighters shot two during the assault and shot three more later. But only before that they managed to kill five passengers and crew members. During the assault, by the way, no one was injured except the terrorists themselves.
The second capture, the target of which was also the Tu-134, only three years later and in Ufa, is even more revealing. It was carried out by servicemen of one of the units of the Internal Troops of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, who had just undergone special training according to the Nabat plan! Having seized not only machine guns in the “arms” of their own unit, but, in addition, a machine gun and even a sniper rifle, these idiots, believing in their own success, rushed to the airfield. On the way, they ran into a police outfit - and shot him in cold blood. As a result, a group of hijackers reduced to two people managed to get to the plane and capture it, while killing two passengers. Naturally, they did not have a chance against the arrived Alpha. One was killed during the assault, the second was later executed ...
Be that as it may, the number of aircraft hijacking attempts in the USSR remained stably high. Statistics, as you know, knows everything. She testifies that in the Soviet Union about a hundred attempts were made to seize aircraft. Successful can be attributed to approximately every fourth of them. 17 hijackers were killed in the process of hijacking or during the ensuing attack on the plane. Which is much worse - the number of civilian aircraft crew members and their passengers killed during the same time is 111 ...
The decrease in the number of such incidents (and, in particular, cases when terrorists did their best) by the mid-to-late 80s was clearly promoted by the growth of professionalism of the domestic special services, fighters of their special units. Improved weapons and special tools used to neutralize terrorists. It was becoming more and more dangerous to play such games ... And then the year 1991 came, and there was no need to capture planes. Well, who will risk their lives if anyone who does not like living where they were born today can easily get a visa, buy a ticket - and roll from Russia on all four sides?
Messages about attempts to hijack planes today in fact most often turn out to be stories of debauches of psychos or alcoholics, unfortunately, on board those. Captures of planes, alas, are not a thing of the past - however, all over the world they remain the destiny of perhaps the most radical terrorist groups. I would like to believe that our special services are not relaxing - and if the threat is more serious than those who decided to fly and it is not known why they are “inadequate” in Kabul, they will be able to react properly.
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