There were 160 passengers on board the liner, 45 of them were minors - all of them were returning home after a holiday at sea. However, due to crew error and bad weather, control over the aircraft was lost - as a result, it crashed to the ground and caught fire. Nobody managed to survive.
13 years ago, on the morning of August 22, 2006, the crew of a Tu-154 aircraft was preparing to make a regular flight from Vityazevo airport in Anapa to Pulkovo in St. Petersburg. 160 passengers boarded the liner: 115 adults and 45 children, six of whom were babies, and the rest were barely 12 years old.
August was very hot, but a few days before the departure of the flight, cold air came to the south, which provoked severe thunderstorms with showers. According to the forecast, on the way the plane was expected by two centers of thunderstorms, in which heavy showers and even hail were observed. However, the commander of the aircraft - 49-year-old Ivan Korogodin - did not attach much importance to the forecasters' warnings and decided to fly.
At 11:04 a.m., the plane took off from Vityazevo and reached its prescribed flight level of 5,700 meters. Eight minutes after the start of the flight, the controller from Rostov-on-Don contacted the flight and warned of powerful thunderstorms with heavy hail. At the same time, he forgot to indicate the height of the thunderstorm front, which reached unusually high values - 12-13 km.
At that time, the crew themselves already saw the impending threat, as became clear from the recording of the conversation in the cockpit between the navigator and the commander. The words of the FAC are heard on it: “Oh, we’re climbing right into the cloud. How ugly."
Nevertheless, the plane managed to safely bypass the frightening cloud - the crew exhaled calmly, not suspecting that the worst was ahead of them.
The second thunderstorm center lay in wait for the plane in the sky over the Donetsk region. At this time, the plane had already been handed over to the dispatchers of the Kharkiv regional center, who did not inform the flight about the disaster. As a result, the St. Petersburg crew headed straight for the thunderstorm without any data on its size.
At 15:30, the Tu-154 entered the zone of clouds through which hail broke through. In order to bypass the dangerous terrain, the commander of flight 612 Korogodin decided to raise the liner higher: in just 5-6 seconds, the 85-ton car flew up almost 400 meters. Continuing to climb at a vertical speed of approximately 68.6 m/s, the aircraft nosed up to a climb angle of 45.7°, after which it rolled over to the right and began to enter a flat tailspin. The crew lost control of the aircraft, which went into an uncontrolled fall.
For some time, the commander was still trying to stabilize the rapidly falling car, deflecting the steering wheel either “towards himself”, then “away from himself”, thereby raising and lowering his nose.
The SOS distress signal was given at the direction of Korogodin at an altitude of 7.2 thousand meters. Approximately two and a half minutes after that, the plane collided with the ground 35 km from Donetsk.
The first blow fell on the right wing and the right engine of the aircraft, then after a fraction of a second it entered the soil and left wing, and also came off the tail. Upon impact, the aircraft's fuel tanks exploded, after which the fuselage was torn apart.
One of the witnesses of the fall of the Tu-154 was Gennady Urasov - at the time of the tragedy, he was in his apiary near the village of Sukhaya Balka. The liner crashed just 300 meters from her.
“Suddenly I heard a terrible rumble. I raised my head and was stunned: a plane was falling on me. It whirled in the air like the millstones of a mill, but I did not see it burning. Then he heard a bang and hit the ground. Already deaf. Ours, who saw how the plane fell, fled to the scene of the tragedy to try to save someone. But you couldn’t even get close to him, he burned so hot, ”the man told the KP newspaper.
According to eyewitnesses, Donetsk airport arrived at the crash site in 20 minutes and immediately told the rescuers the exact coordinates of the fall of the Tu-154. However, the firefighters who arrived could not even get close to the plane, as a heavy downpour began. Streams of water washed away the slope of the hill, so the fire had to be extinguished through a sleeve that stretched from a nearby lake. For this, 10 fire trucks were involved.
By the evening of the next day, fragments of the bodies of 150 dead were recovered from under the rubble, which were taken to Donetsk in black plastic bags.
“I have been working in the Ministry of Emergency Situations for eight years, but I have never seen anything like this,” one of the rescuers recalled in a conversation with KP. - Children and their mothers literally intertwined into one. The bodies were badly burned. On the faces - horror.
Andrey Frolov was among the passengers of the crashed liner that day. Initially, the man was not supposed to fly this plane - he even had ticket purchased On the train. However, on the last day, he decided to stay in Anapa for another day and scheduled a flight on flight 612. His mother and her grandson left by train, not suspecting that a few days later they would have to go to the identification procedure.
The tragedy near Donetsk became one of three largest air crashes with the participation of Tu-154. The final results of the crash investigation were published on February 17, 2007. They were presented by a government commission chaired by Igor Levitin, head of the RF Ministry of Transport.
“The cause of the crash of the Tu-154M RA-85185 aircraft of Pulkovo Airlines was the withdrawal of the aircraft during flight in the control mode to supercritical angles of attack and stall mode, followed by a transition to a flat tailspin and a collision with the ground at high vertical speed,” the document said.
After the plane crash near Donetsk, Levitin also promised that the Tu-154 and Tu-134 would be replaced by other ships within 5 years. Relatives of those who died in the crash and experts in the field of aviation then spoke out for a ban on flights on these planes.
“In our case, the investigation found the commander guilty. They referred to the inadequacy of his actions, pulled the steering wheel to the side, and this led to the stall of the aircraft, in simple terms. Plus bad weather. But all these are consequences, not causes of the disaster,” Vitaliy Yusko, co-founder of the public regional organization for assistance to victims of air crashes Interrupted Flight, told reporters.
A year after the tragedy, a monument to the victims was erected at the site of the fuselage crash, one and a half kilometers from the village of Sukhaya Balka. It is made of white concrete and is part of an airplane wing. Around it are marble slabs engraved with views of St. Petersburg and the names of the passengers of flight PLK-612.
Initially, the composition of the monument was also supposed to include the engine of the crashed aircraft. For this, the commission of inquiry even gave permission for the use of a Tu-154 fragment. However, later the authors of the monument abandoned this idea, since hunters for non-ferrous metal could attack the unguarded monument.
No. 10. A300 crash over the Persian Gulf - 290 dead
The A300 crash over the Persian Gulf occurred on July 3, 1988. An Iran Air Airbus A300B2-203 was on a commercial passenger flight IR655 on the Tehran-Bender-Abbas-Dubai route, but a few minutes after taking off from Bandar Abbas, flying over the Persian Gulf, it was hit by a surface-to-air missile fired from US Navy guided missile cruiser Vincennes. All 290 people on board the aircraft were killed: 16 crew members and 274 passengers, including 65 children. During the launch of the missile, the cruiser Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters.
The US government said the Iranian airliner was mistakenly identified as an Iranian Air Force F-14 fighter. The Iranian government, however, claims that the Vincennes deliberately attacked a civilian aircraft.
No. 9. Boeing 777 crash in Donetsk region - 298 dead
The accident occurred on July 17, 2014 in the east of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, when the Boeing 777 aircraft of the airline Malaysia Airlines operated a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. 
On board the aircraft were 283 passengers and 15 crew members, all of whom died. 
No. 8. L-1011 disaster in Riyadh - 301 dead
The L-1011 crash in Riyadh occurred on Tuesday, August 19, 1980 at Riyadh airport.
A few minutes after taking off from Karachi, a fire broke out on board a Lockheed L-1011-385-1-15 TriStar 200 operated by Saudi Arabian Airlines on passenger flight SVA163 on the Karachi-Riyadh-Jeddah route. The crew was able to forced landing in Riyadh, however, airport emergency services opened the door to the passenger compartment only 23 minutes after the plane landed. As a result of the delay in the evacuation, the liner burned out completely, killing all 287 passengers and 14 crew members on board (a total of 301 people).
Lockheed L-1011-385-1-15 TriStar 200 of Saudi Arabian Airlines, identical to the burnt one: 
#7 Boeing 747 crash near Cork - 329 dead
The Boeing 747 crash near Cork occurred on Sunday 23 June 1985 as a result of a terrorist attack. Airliner Boeing 747-237B airlines Air India made flight AI182 on the Montreal-London-Delhi-Bombay route, but when approaching London, an explosion thundered on board, destroying the aircraft. All 329 people on board were killed - 307 passengers and 22 crew members. 
When the explosion thundered, the tail of the aircraft was torn off, the crew of the ship did not even have time to transmit a distress signal, hundreds of passengers “scattered” in the sky over the Atlantic, then within a few days 131 bodies and aircraft wreckage were lifted from the water.
No. 6. Disaster DC-10 near Paris - 346 dead
The Paris DC-10 crash, also known as the Ermenonville Air Crash, occurred on Sunday March 3, 1974 near Paris.
Airliner McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 Turkish airlines Airlines operated passenger flight TK 981 on the Istanbul-Paris-London route. 6 minutes after departure from Paris at an altitude of 3500 meters, one of the doors of the cargo compartment suddenly opened, which created an explosive decompression, as a result of which the control systems were destroyed. The liner went into a dive and after 1.5 minutes at high speed crashed into the Ermenonville forest northeast of Paris. 
All 346 people died, including 12 crew members and 334 passengers. The DC-10 crash near Paris remains the largest aircraft crash with no survivors. 
No. 5. Collision over Charkhi Dadri - 349 dead
On November 12, 1996, 5 kilometers from the Indian city of Charkhi Dadri, at an altitude of 4109 meters, Boeing 747-168B airliners of Saudi Arabian Airlines (flight SVA763 Delhi-Jeddah) and Il-76TD of Kazakhstan Airlines (flight KZA1907 Shymkent-Delhi) collided. All 349 people on both planes died: 312 people on Flight 763 and 37 people on Flight 1907.
This plane crash is the largest in terms of the number of victims in the collision of aircraft in the air. 
No. 4. The crash of the Boeing 747 near Tokyo - 520 dead
The Boeing 747 crash near Tokyo occurred on August 12, 1985. The Boeing 747SR-46 of Japan Airlines was flying JAL 123 on the Tokyo-Osaka route, but lost its vertical tail stabilizer 12 minutes after takeoff.
Computer reconstruction of the disaster: 
The crew kept the unmanned airliner in the air for 32 minutes, but the plane lost control and crashed into Mount Otsutaka, 112 kilometers from Tokyo. 520 people died, of which 15 crew members and 505 passengers, 4 people survived.
This biggest disaster one aircraft. 
No. 3. Collision at the airport of Los Rodeos - 583 dead
The Los Rodeos Airport Collision (also known as the Tenerife Collision) occurred on March 27, 1977 on the island of Tenerife ( Canary Islands). Boeing 747-206B airliners of KLM airlines (flight KL4805 Amsterdam-Las Palmas) and Boeing 747-121 of Pan American airlines (flight PA1736 Los Angeles-New York-Las Palmas) collided on the runway. 
583 people died: 248 people on board the Boeing KLM, of which 234 passengers and 14 crew members, and 335 people on board the Pan American Boeing, of which 326 passengers and 9 crew members. 61 people on the Pan American Boeing survived the crash: 54 passengers and 7 crew members.
#2 United Airlines Flight 175 - 65 people on board and 900+ dead in and around the building
United Airlines Flight 175 was hijacked during the September 11, 2001 attacks. He became the second aircraft involved in the attack.
Airliner Boeing 767-222 attacked the south tower of the World shopping center in NYC. The ramming of the South Tower by Flight 175 was the only plane crash that was seen on live television around the world. The impact and subsequent fire that engulfed south tower, led to the collapse of the skyscraper 56 minutes after the accident.
There were 65 people on board the plane: 51 passengers, 5 terrorists and 9 crew members, all died. The total death toll was more than 900 people who were in and around the tower and the rescuers involved in the evacuation. 
No. 1. 11 American Airlines flight - 92 people on board and 1600+ dead in and around the building
On September 11, 2001, an American Boeing 767-223ER Airlines flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York as a result of a terrorist takeover. He became the first aircraft involved in the attack.
The catastrophe was witnessed by thousands of people who were at that moment on the streets near the World Trade Center. Several video cameras filmed the Boeing hit. After being rammed by an aircraft, the tower caught fire and after 102 minutes collapsed into neighboring areas. 
There were 92 people on board the plane: 76 passengers, 5 terrorists and 11 crew members, all died. The total death toll was more than 1,600 people who were in and around the tower and the rescuers involved in the evacuation.
On that ill-fated day, at 18:00, a Japan Airlines Boeing 747SR-46 was preparing to fly from Tokyo to Osaka. The flight belonged to short distances and was supposed to last 54 minutes. Thanks to a special modification of the aircraft model, the board could accommodate 550 passengers.
JAL Flight 123 12 had 509 people and 15 crew members on board at takeoff. The aircraft commander was an experienced pilot, 49-year-old Masami Takahama, who had worked for the airline for 19 years. The co-pilot was 39-year-old Yutaka Sasaki with 10 years of experience.
At 18:12, the plane took off from Tokyo's Haneda Airport. At 18:24, at an altitude of 7200 meters, one of the flight attendants asked the commander if it was possible to start servicing passengers. After receiving an affirmative answer, a loud sound was heard in the cabin, similar to an explosion. The cabin was filled with white smoke.
The pilots had an alarm signaling a sudden drop in pressure inside the fuselage. They could not understand what had happened, and assumed that the landing gear doors had been torn off. The flight engineer at the same time reported a malfunction of the hydraulic system.
The commander of the ship decided to turn the plane around and return to Tokyo, but when the co-pilot tried to turn the helm, it turned out that the Boeing was out of control.
The ground controller received a message with the number "7700", meaning that the plane was in distress. The crew and passengers put on oxygen masks, which are activated in case of depressurization of the aircraft.
The pilots tried with all their might to lie down on the reverse course, but every minute the situation worsened - the plane began to sway along all three axes with increasing amplitude, entering the terrible “Dutch step” mode.
Panic began in the cabin, the passengers became ill. They prayed, wept, tore pages out of notebooks and wrote farewell letters to their loved ones.
At this time, in the cockpit, they tried to regain control over the aircraft, using only the thrust of the engines. Differentiating the thrust of the left and right turbines, the crew still managed to deploy the liner in the direction of Tokyo.
Dispatchers from the ground offered various options for emergency landing aircraft, but the pilots did not have to choose - they could lose control at any second.
Attempts to start a descent in the area of Mount Fuji failed. At 18:41, the plane again went out of control and made a circle with a radius of 4 km over the city of Otsuki. The pilots managed to regain control.
At 18:47, the ship's commander informed the dispatchers that the aircraft was out of control and was about to crash into a mountain. But the crew again managed to avoid a collision. However, immediately after that, the plane began to rapidly lose altitude. Flying over the Izu Peninsula and Suruga Bay, the Boeing found itself in a mountainous area, which made the chances of a happy completion of the flight minimal.
But even in this situation, the crew continued to try to control the thrust of the engines, although at one point the plane almost fell into a tailspin. Using the maximum thrust of the engines and the release of the flaps from the emergency electrical system, the crew managed to level the Boeing. However, the liner, lowering its nose, rushed to the next peak.
The aircraft commander leveled the car, but there was no time left to avoid another collision with the mountain. The wing hit the tops of the trees - the plane rolled over and at 18:56 at high speed crashed into the wooded slope of Mount Otsutaka at an altitude of 1457 meters, 112 kilometers northwest of Tokyo. A fire broke out at the crash site.
The US Air Force C-130 found the crash site 30 minutes after the crash. The coordinates were given to the Japanese, but a rescue helicopter arrived and found that the wreckage lay on a steep slope, landing in this area was difficult.
Moreover, a fire was burning there - the helicopter commander decided to return to the base, reporting that no traces of the presence of survivors were found.
Rescuers arrived after 14 hours, not expecting to meet the living, but there were four alive: 26-year-old Yumi Ochiai, 34-year-old Hiroko Yoshizaki with her 8-year-old daughter Mikiko and 12-year-old Keiko Kawakami.
Yumi Ochiai worked as a flight attendant for Japan Airlines, but she was on a private trip at the time. It was she who reported the most information about what happened on board.
Rescuers found 12-year-old Keiko in a tree - the girl was thrown out during a plane crash. For some time her father was also alive, but he could not stand the 14-hour wait.
There were many survivors, but in addition to injuries, they received serious hypothermia after a night on the mountain, without waiting for help.
At the crash site, black boxes and numerous letters from the dead to their families were found.
Japan experienced a real shock - the relatives of the victims smashed the offices of Japan Airlines, and its employees avoided appearing in crowded places. The president of the airline resigned without waiting for the results of the investigation, and the head of the technical service at the airport made hara-kiri.
But what caused the plane to crash? On August 13, 1985, a destroyer of the Japanese Naval Self-Defense Forces picked up fragments of the vertical and horizontal tail of a Boeing floating in Sagami Bay. This meant that in flight the aircraft lost its keel and elevators.
With such breakdowns, the aircraft is doomed. Moreover, it was supposed to crash almost immediately, but the pilots managed to keep it in the air for another half an hour. Their skill saved four lives - there could have been many more saved people if not for the 14-hour wait.
AND main question: why did the plane lose its tail in flight?
It turned out that back on June 2, 1978, due to pilot error, the JA8119 board hit the tail section on runway Osaka Airport, as a result of which the tail pressure bulkhead was damaged - a bulkhead separating the tail passenger compartment of the liner, in which approximately constant air pressure is maintained, from the unpressurized tail section of the aircraft.
The repair was carried out in Japan - it was necessary to strengthen the damaged halves of the pressure bulkhead with the help of a solid reinforcement plate, fixed with three rows of rivets. But instead of installing a single reinforcement with three rows of rivets, the technicians used two separate reinforcing elements, one of which was fixed with a double row of rivets, and the second with just a single one.
The repair team decided that "it will do" - and indeed, the aircraft continued to fly successfully. But during takeoffs and landings, the loads gradually destroyed the metal at the drilling sites. The catastrophe became inevitable - the only question was when it would happen.
On August 12, 1985, the pressure bulkhead could not withstand the pressure from the next take-off and finally collapsed, breaking the pipelines of the hydraulic systems. Air from the cabin under high pressure hit the cavity of the vertical tail stabilizer, knocking it out like a cork from a bottle of champagne. The plane lost control.
After the disaster, Japan Airlines took a very long time to restore its reputation, and Boeing Corporation tightened the rules for the repair of liners and conducted an urgent check of its liners around the world. But people's lives could not be returned.
October 20, 1986 at 15 hours 58 minutes Moscow time at the Kuibyshev airport (and now it is Samara, Kurumoch airport) crashed a Tu-134 aircraft of the Grozny squadron of the North Caucasus Directorate civil aviation, following the route "Sverdlovsk-Grozny". Photographs of this disaster, taken by the head of the test fire laboratory V.V. Frygin. It must be understood that in Soviet times all air crashes were classified. KGB officers immediately appeared at the scene of the accident, who made sure that no one took pictures. VV Frygin still managed to hide one of the two films.
01. The bodies of the dead are taken out of the plane
"Special message. To the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, comrade Ryzhkov N.I. Top secret.
On October 20, 1986, at 15:58 Moscow time, a TU-134 plane of the Grozny squadron of the North Caucasian Civil Aviation Administration crashed at the Kuibyshev airport on the Sverdlovsk-Grozny route. At the time of the incident, there were 85 passengers on board the aircraft, including 14 children, and 8 crew members.
Immediately after the emergency landing, a fire broke out on board the aircraft. The emergency rescue service of the airport and the fire departments of the city of Kuibyshev extinguished the fire, rescued 16 people from among the passengers and crew, the rest of the survivors left the burning aircraft on their own or were carried out by the crew. Directly at the time of the disaster, 53 passengers and 5 crew members died, 28 people were hospitalized. Subsequently, 11 more people died in hospitals. A government commission arrived at Kuibyshev Airport to investigate the causes of the crash.
Chairman of the Kuibyshev Regional Executive Committee V.A. Pogodin".
02.
October 20, 1986 the weather in Samara is excellent, the wind is 2-3 meters per second. The plane TU-134 is landing. But something is wrong... The plane is landing too fast and at too sharp an angle. The plane literally crashes "belly" on a concrete runway, the landing gear breaks, it is dragged along the runway, then it skids to the right, takes it to the ground and the plane rolls over. The right wing broke off, and the left folded in half. The hull broke into two parts and kerosene poured from the fuel tanks onto the red-hot turbines of the engines. A fire started. Three flight attendants burned to death. An oxygen cylinder was stored next to their cabin, from which the fitting was knocked out and a hot stream of oxygen hit them directly. From the flight attendants, only fragments of skulls and tibias remained.
03.
Sergey Churilov recalls, in 1986, the political officer of the company of the regiment of the patrol service of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the city of Samara: “On the evening of October 20, I was on duty in the village of Bereza. on the runway. When we entered the territory of the airport, we saw a plane broken into two parts, its torn off and burning wing. I also remember that a woman was holding out a child from a break in the hull, and a pilot got out of his cockpit, caught his breath a little - and again climbed into the plane. He pulled someone into the air - and again inside, behind the passengers. In total, he saved several people. Meanwhile, firefighters put out everything that was burning. And we, who arrived on alarm from the police, were dispersed about one hundred and fifty meters from the crashed plane and warned: for the cordon not to let anyone in, except for members of the government commission.
04. Loading corpses 
A man in handcuffs ran out of the plane and, running away from the plane, stopped. It turned out that a recidivist was being transported from Grozny. And, although the conditions for the escape were ideal, he did not run away, but waited for the policemen to notice him.
Five or six people escaped through a hatch in the tail section, which was opened by one of the passengers. But this hatch, as the commission later established, caused the death of several more passengers, since there was a rift ahead through which air flowed. The effect of "furnace draft" was created. Flame and smoke went through the entire cabin, and since the interior lining emits all sorts of rubbish when burned, the passengers breathed it and got poisoned
05. Inverted aircraft cabin 
At 16.59, a message was received from the dispatcher of the fire department of the airport "Kurumoch" to the control panel of the SVCH-8 of the Krasnoglinsky district of Kuibyshev: "Your help is needed, the plane at the airport is on fire." They arrived 20 minutes later, but there was no fire. 18 units of rescue equipment arrived from Kuibyshev. The fact is that the flames were suppressed by the fighters of the fire and emergency services of the airport. They came to him literally a minute and a half after the signal arrived, having gathered and drove kilometer distance which is better than the standard. Then the government commission 18 times in a row raised the alarm units, forcing them to rush to the fire point, and all the time the result was one and a half minutes. The commission acknowledged that 69 deaths were not the fault of firefighters. They acted promptly and professionally, it was just that the whole plane flared up too quickly.
The fire was extinguished at 17.44. The head of the fire department, Colonel A.K., arrived at the scene of the fire. Karpov and the fire fighting headquarters of the UPO, which included the engineer of this laboratory, and now the head of the test fire laboratory V.V. Frygin, whose photographs we see. Here is what he recalls: “Not everyone could contemplate such a terrible picture without a shudder. Many people immediately turned out from the sight of corpses and the sickening smell of burnt meat. I dived into a smoky crack in the hull and immediately saw dead people hanging over my head, fastened with seat belts. clothes, and others only without shoes.All this was either torn off from them by a stream of air or burned up in a flame.
06.
I see a girl hanging on the straps and seems to be moving - which means she may still be alive. I took her in my arms and began to make my way back to the exit. Then I saw another child in blue overalls, lying on the floor - that is, on the ceiling, which at that moment became the floor. There was still air, and, therefore, there was a chance that the baby would survive. I was already bending down to the child when dead people began to fall right on top of me. Two collapsed right on the baby - such healthy men. Apparently, the straps holding them melted, and the bodies fell one after another on the rescuers. I still pulled out the children, but it was not possible to save them.
07.
I not only dragged corpses from the plane, but as part of my duty, I also tried to take as many photographs of the scene as possible. I understood that they would then be very useful in investigating the causes of the tragedy. However, this unique photographic film was nearly destroyed. The fact is that almost simultaneously with us, KGB officers arrived at the crash site. And in the ensuing darkness, the uniforms of firefighters and KGB officers looked quite similar, and, apparently, that’s why, without any special obstacles from the state security officers, I managed to snap off almost a whole film within 15-20 minutes. I filmed the charred plane, the bodies of passengers hanging on belts, and the loading of corpses into cars.
But soon the KGB officers caught on. Taking another shot, I heard a conversation behind me: “What kind of photographer is walking around here? He doesn’t look like ours. We need to find out.” I immediately realized: the film must be saved. Without a moment's hesitation, I ran behind the car, quickly rewound the almost completely filmed cassette to the beginning, and took it out of the machine. Just then, one of the firefighters I knew passed by. I gave him the cassette and told him to hide it deep in my inner pocket, and only asked me to return it personally and only upon arrival in Kuibyshev.
08.
As soon as I inserted a new film into the camera and took a few shots, KGB officers approached me. They checked my documents, listened to my words that the pictures would be needed for the investigation, but then they still forced me to open the camera and exposed the film. They explained that permission to take photographs was issued only to an employee of their department, in connection with which they warned me not to spin around the plane with my camera anymore. So, if I hadn’t oriented myself in time and hid the film, then hardly anyone would have seen the pictures of the liner that crashed in 1986.”
09.
Passengers and firefighters recall that TU-134 co-pilot Yevgeny Zhirnov pulled several people out of the plane. And when he pulled a woman through the pilot's cabin, he sank to the ground, said that it was difficult for him to breathe and lost consciousness. Three days later he died in the Berezovskaya medical unit.
10. Valery Frygin 
So what caused the disaster? The "black box" recorded all the negotiations and the incredible was revealed. The crew commander, first-class pilot Alexander Klyuev, argued with other crew members that he would land the plane blindly, only according to the readings of the instruments. He closed all the windows with metal curtains and went to land. But he went at too steep an angle and with excessive speed. Calculations showed that the chassis hit the concrete strip with a load one and a half times the tensile strength. At first, during interrogation by the investigator, Klyuev fully confessed to the dispute, but then changed his testimony at the trial, saying that before landing there was a fuel leak and one of the engines failed. But these testimonies of his were not confirmed by the case materials and technical expertise. The court gave him 15 years in prison. But after Klyuev's petition, he changed his term to 6 years in prison.
