Vitaliy Kaloev about the film "Consequences": Schwarzenegger did not ask how I feel. Collision over Lake Constance: how Ossetians took revenge on the Swiss air traffic controller Collision of two planes through the fault of the dispatcher

"I knocked. Nielsen came out. At first I gestured to him to invite me into the house. But he slammed the door. I called again and said to him:" Ikh bin russland "(" I am Russia "). I remember these words from school "He didn't say anything. I took out photographs of the bodies of my children. I wanted him to look at them. But he pushed my hand away and sharply gestured for me to get out ... Like a dog: get out. Well, I said nothing. You see, resentment took me. Even my eyes filled with tears. I held out my hand to him with the photographs for the second time and said in Spanish: "Look!" ... Probably," said Vitaliy Kaloev, adding that he does not remember how he left the air traffic controller's house.

He claims that he came to the air traffic controller's house in order to make him apologize for his tragic mistake: "I decided to make him repent. I wanted to show him photos of my murdered family, and then go with him to Skyguide and call the television so that they - Nielsen and Rossier (the head of the company) - apologize to me in front of the camera. This wish of mine was no secret to anyone."

The Russian says that he repeatedly asked the director of the Swiss company to arrange a meeting with Nielsen, but he refused: “Yes, in 2003 I asked Skyguide to show me Nielsen, and they hid him. And then I received a fax letter. Skyguide asked, so that I would give up my dead family: receive compensation and sign papers on which I agreed so that the company would no longer be persecuted. I was outraged. I called them and said that I would like to meet with Nielsen and discuss these issues. He first agreed, and then refused.

Kaloev admits that he does not regret the dispatcher’s death: “How should I feel sorry for him? You see, it didn’t make me feel better that he died. My children didn’t return ...” While in prison, he is unable to speak Russian, but really suffers only because he cannot visit the grave of his loved ones.

A native of North Ossetia, suspected in the murder, says that he understands better than anyone else what the relatives of the victims of the Beslan tragedy are now: "No one understands the Beslanovites better than me. I don't know how they should live on." “I watched it on TV and sent a telegram of condolences to the President of North Ossetia... And I wrote what bastards the Swiss are, they told me: “You should do it!” And the local doctor said: “It should be easier for you. Because there are already many like you ... "- says Kaloev.

The Russian said that, like many residents of Beslan, he still sees no point in later life: "While I have plans - to live to see the court. But I'm not afraid of him. And I don't recognize it. I told them so: the Swiss court means nothing to me. For me, the court of my children is higher. If they could, they would say that I really loved them, that I did not leave them, did not allow them to disappear without a trace.

In Germany, it happened on July 2, 2002 - due to an error of the dispatcher and crew Russian aircraft a cargo Boeing 757 and Tu-154 of Bashkir Airlines collided. On board the latter were 69 people. All of them, including Kaloev's wife, son and daughter, died.

Numerous safety violations committed by Skyguide, after two years, still forced the Swiss. Last summer, after Nielsen's death, they offered to pay $150,000 for each victim, but this move only angered the relatives.

In 2002, on the night of July 2, a passenger Tu-154 collided with a cargo Boeing-757 over Lake Constance in Germany. There were 71 passengers in the Tu-154, of which 52 were children. The family of the architect Vitaly Kaloev died in that plane crash.

The passenger aircraft was on a charter flight from Moscow to Barcelona, ​​and a cargo Boeing from Bergamo (Italy) to Brussels. Children (52 people) were taken to Spain to have a rest - vouchers were issued by the UNESCO Committee of Bashkiria for high academic achievements.

Among the passengers of the Tu-154 was the wife of Vitaly Kaloev Svetlana, their 10-year-old son Kostya and 4-year-old daughter Diana. Vitaliy Kaloev himself at that time worked in Barcelona, ​​and the family flew to him. After a collision with a cargo Boeing, the Tu-154 simply fell apart right in the sky. The wreckage was found in the vicinity of Überlingen within a radius of 40 square meters. km. It took the rescuers a whole week to find the bodies of all the dead: they were scattered across the field, near the nearest buildings, on the roadsides.

The story of the tragedy of Vitaliy Kaloev, how he killed the dispatcher

The plane crash occurred a few minutes after the transfer of escort of the Russian aircraft by German air traffic controllers to their colleagues in Switzerland, who worked at the SkyGuide center of Zurich-Kloten Airport.

According to the rules, two dispatchers should be on duty, but there was one - Dane Peter Nielsen. He handed over to the crew of the Russian passenger aircraft the order to descend at the very moment when neither he nor the cargo Boeing could take the safe echelons. It soon became known:

- The main equipment for telephone communication and automatic notification of the personnel of the center about the dangerous proximity of aircraft was turned off. The main and backup telephone lines were not working.

The planes were approaching, everything pointed to a plane crash. This was noticed by a dispatcher from the German Karlsruhe, and tried to get through eleven times, but to no avail.

Peter Nielsen worked for some time after the tragedy, then he was fired.

One of the first to arrive at the scene of the tragedy was Vitaly Kaloev. The director could not find a place for himself, because his whole family died - his beloved wife and two small children. At first, the special services did not let him into the crash zone, but he said that he wanted to search for the bodies of the dead with them, and he was given permission. During a search operation, Vitaliy Kaloev discovered a pearl necklace. It was the decoration of his daughter Diana. The body of the baby had practically no serious injuries. Soon the disfigured bodies of Svetlana and Kostya were found.

When Vitaliy Kaloev found out that the plane crash was the fault of dispatcher Peter Nielsen, he tried many times to contact the management aviation company. He wanted to know what degree of fault the dispatcher had in the tragedy. Then he decided to talk to Peter Nielsen himself, and asked SkyGuide to arrange a meeting for them. Initially, the company agreed, then refused, without explaining the reason. A year has passed, mourning events were arranged to coincide with the anniversary of the terrible tragedy, and the director again turned to the company with the same questions and demands, and was again refused. But he was not going to give up.

February 24, 2004 was the last day of the life of the former dispatcher Peter Nielsen - Vitaly Kaloev dealt with him in his house in Kloten (a suburb of Zurich). The director came to him with photographs deceased family, waited for that repentance. However, the man pushed Vitaly Kaloev away, the photos scattered. The director simply "lost his temper" and killed the man, inflicting more than twenty wounds with a knife. The dispatcher is survived by his wife and three children.

Vitaliy Kaloev was very quickly detained by the Swiss police: an orientation was sent out to him. The director was arrested local hotel, interrogated. He told how he found out where Peter Nielsen lives, what kind of family he has. He also said that he was in a state of passion when he stabbed Nielsen in his house.

Vitaly Kaloev was sent to psychiatric examination. According to the results obtained, he was declared sane. The trial took place in October 2005: the director was given a term of 8 years, which he served in a Swiss prison. True, Vitaliy Kaloev was released already in 2007 by the decision of the Swiss Supreme Court for exemplary behavior. Upon his return to North Ossetia, he began working as Deputy Minister of Architecture and Construction.

The guilt of the Swiss air traffic controllers was proven.

- The control center in Zurich did not immediately notice the danger of two planes colliding at the same echelon. As a result, the Tu-154 pilots carried out the dispatcher's command to descend, while the on-board flight safety system required an urgent climb.

The airline pleaded not guilty. A couple of years after the plane crash, Alain Rossier, director of SkyGuide, publicly apologized to the families of the victims. Vladimir Putin received a letter from then-Swiss President Joseph Deiss.

The film "Consequences" was made about this plane crash, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger played the main role. Two days ago, on September 20, there was a press screening of "Unforgiven" by Sarik Andreasyan about the same tragedy. Vitaly Kaloev was entrusted to play Dmitry Nagiyev.

What is now with Vitaly Kaloev

My heart hurts for Vitaly Kaloev. But a man tries to be strong, to arrange his life. Recently it became known that he remarried. director about new family speaks little and fearfully. It is known that the chosen one is called Irina, they got married according to the Ossetian rite.

Irina and Vitaly Kaloev became husband and wife back in 2014. Now the director is 62 years old. For the anniversary (60th anniversary), he was given the award "For the Glory of Ossetia."

Ten years ago, a plane crash occurred in the skies over Germany, which killed 52 children and 19 adults - passengers and crew of a Tu-154 and a cargo Boeing-757, which collided as a result of a mistake by Swiss air traffic controllers.

On the night of July 1-2, 2002 in Germany in the area of ​​Lake Constance, a Russian passenger airliner Tu-154 of the Bashkir Airlines company, performing chartered flight from Moscow to Barcelona (Spain), and a Boeing-757 cargo plane of the international air transportation company DHL flying from Bergamo (Italy) to Brussels (Belgium). On board the Tu-154 were 12 crew members and 57 passengers - 52 children and five adults. Most of the children were sent on vacation to Spain as a reward for excellent studies by the UNESCO Committee of Bashkiria. By a tragic accident, on the plane - Svetlana Kaloeva with 10-year-old Kostya and 4-year-old Diana, who flew to her husband, Vitaly Kaloev, in Spain, where he worked under a contract. The cargo Boeing was flown by two pilots.

From the collision, the Tu-154 fell apart in the air into several parts that fell in the vicinity of the German city of Überlingen.

The crash resulted in 52 children and 19 adults.

The tragedy occurred a few minutes after German air traffic controllers handed over escort of the Russian aircraft to Swiss colleagues from the SkyGuide air control center operating at one of the largest European airports, Zurich-Kloten (Switzerland).

That night, at the Skyguide air traffic control center, there was one controller on duty instead of the usual two - Peter Nielsen. He gave the Tu-154 crew a command to descend when the approaching aircraft could no longer occupy safe echelons.

The main equipment for telephone communication and automatic notification of the personnel of the center about the dangerous approach of aircraft was turned off. The main and backup telephone lines were not working. The dispatcher from the German city of Karlsruhe, who noticed the dangerous approach of the planes, tried 11 times to get through - and to no avail.

After the plane crash, Nielsen was suspended from work, and the Swiss investigating authorities launched a criminal investigation against Skyguide and its management.

February 24, 2004 Peter Nielsen in the Zurich suburb of Kloten by a Russian citizen Vitaly Kaloev, who lost his entire family in a plane crash over Lake Constance - his wife, daughter and son. On this day, Kaloev came to the dispatcher's house to show him photos dead wives and children, but Nielsen pushed him away and the photos fell to the ground, causing the heartbroken man to lose control of himself.

In October 2005, Kaloev was convicted of the murder and. In November 2007, he was released early and returned to his homeland, North Ossetia. In 2008, Vitaliy Kaloev in construction and architecture of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania.

Immediately after the disaster, the Swiss company Skyguide put all the blame on the Russian pilots, who, in their opinion, did not understand the instructions of the controller in English well.

In May 2004, the German Federal Aviation Accident Investigation Office issued a report on the results of the crash investigation.

Experts acknowledged that in the collision of a Tu-154 passenger airliner of Bashkir Airlines with a cargo Boeing from Skyguide.

The control center in Zurich did not notice in time the danger of two planes colliding at the same echelon. The crew of the Russian Tu-154 carried out the dispatcher's command to descend, despite the fact that the on-board flight safety system TIKAS required an urgent climb.

Only after the publication of the report, Skyguide admitted its mistakes and, two years after the disaster, its director Alain Rossier apologized to the families of the victims. On May 19, 2004, Swiss President Joseph Deiss sent an official letter of apology to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the plane crash over Lake Constance.

In December 2006, Skyguide director Alain Rossier.

In September 2007, the district court in Bülach, Switzerland, found four employees of the Skyguide air traffic control service guilty of criminal negligence that led to a plane crash over Lake Constance. In total, eight employees of the Swiss company appeared before the court. Defendants, shifting it to the murdered dispatcher Peter Nielsen.

Four Skyguide managers in manslaughter. Three of them were sentenced to probation, one to a fine. Four other defendants are acquitted.

The Skyguide company offered the families of the victims of the disaster certain compensation, provided that their claim was not considered in one of the US courts. Some of the families did not agree with this proposal, and at a meeting of the committee of parents of dead children in June 2004 in Ufa, in which 29 people took part, there was, including the payment of compensation, in court.

On July 1, 2004, it became known that lawsuits were filed in the US and Spanish courts against the Swiss air traffic control service Skyguide, who lost their relatives in a plane crash over Lake Constance.

In February 2010, the Federal Administrative Court of Switzerland opened a memorial complex dedicated to the victims of the crash.

In 2004, at the scene of a tragedy in the German city of Überlingen in a plane crash, which is a torn necklace, the pearls of which scattered along the trajectory of the wreckage of two aircraft.

In 2006, in Zurich, opposite the Skyguide building, there was a spiral, on which 72 candles were installed in memory of 71 victims of a plane crash and a killed air traffic controller.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

In 2002, in a plane crash over Lake Constance, Vitaly Kaloev lost his family.
Due to an error by an employee of the Skyguide air traffic control company, two planes collided, 71 people died, including Kaloev's wife and two children.
After 478 days, he killed air traffic controller Peter Nielsen and spent the next four years in a Swiss prison.
13 years later, a film was made about those events in the United States with Arnold Schwarzenegger in leading role. This is a drama about a man whose life suddenly collapsed. The prototype of the hero Schwarzenegger rarely communicates with journalists, but Vitaly Kaloev took the time to talk about his fate.

Now he has more free time. He recently celebrated his sixtieth birthday and retired. For eight years he worked as Deputy Minister of Construction of North Ossetia. He was appointed to this post shortly after his early release from a Swiss prison.

"Vitaly Konstantinovich Kaloev, whose fate is known on all continents the globe, was awarded the Medal “For the Glory of Ossetia,” the website of the Ministry of Construction and Architecture of the republic reports. “On the day of his 60th birthday, he received this highest award from the hands of Boris Borisovich Dzhanaev, Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania.”

News from Hollywood and Vladikavkaz came in the second half of January with a difference of less than two weeks. "The film is based on real events: a plane crash in July 2002 and what happened 478 days later," the profile site imdb.com points out.
The plane crash killed Vitaly's wife Svetlana and their children - eleven-year-old Konstantin and four-year-old Diana. All of them flew to the head of the family in Spain, where Kaloev designed houses.
And on February 22, 2004, his attempt to talk to Peter Nielsen, an employee of the Skyguide air traffic control company, ended in the murder of the controller on the threshold own house in the Swiss town of Kloten: twelve strokes with a penknife.

“I knocked. Nielsen came out, - Kaloev told reporters " Komsomolskaya Pravda"in March 2005. - I first gestured to him to invite me into the house. But he slammed the door.
I called again and said to him: Ich bin Russland. I remember these words from school. He said nothing. I took out photographs of the bodies of my children. I wanted him to look at them. But he pushed my hand away and sharply gestured for me to get out ... Like a dog: get out.
Well, I kept silent, the insult took me. Even my eyes filled with tears. I extended my hand to him with the photographs for the second time and said in Spanish: "Look!" He slapped me on the arm - the pictures flew. And it started there."

Later, Skyguide's fault in the plane crash was recognized by the court, several of Nielsen's colleagues received suspended sentences. Kaloev was sentenced to eight years, but released early in November 2008.

In Vladikavkaz, Deputy Minister Kaloev led federal and international projects: the television tower on Lysa Gora is beautiful, with a cable car that spins observation deck and a restaurant - and the Valery Gergiev Caucasian Musical and Cultural Center, designed in the workshop of Norman Foster.

Vitaliy Kaloev speaks more modestly and harshly about personal achievements: “I think that I lived my life in vain: I could not save my family.
What depended on me is the second question. Vitaly avoids detailed judgments about what does not depend on him. The film "478" is no exception. Arnold Schwarzenegger Kaloev, in principle, appreciates for the role of "big, kind men." At the same time, the prototype is sure that Schwarzenegger (Victor in the film) will play what is written in the script, from which Vitaly does not expect anything good.
“If it were at the household level - one question. But then Hollywood, politics, ideology, relations with Russia,” he says.

The main thing that Vitaly asks for is that there is no need to show that he fled somewhere, as in a European film based on the same plot. “He came openly, left openly, did not hide from anyone. Everything is in the case file, everything is reflected.

The authors of the Hollywood film assure that the role of Viktor Schwarzenegger will reveal itself in a new way - not like " last Hero action", but as a purely dramatic artist. Actually, if you follow real events, otherwise it won't work. “At ten in the morning I was at the scene of the tragedy,” Kaloev testifies. - I saw all these bodies - I froze in tetanus, could not move. A village near Überlingen, there was a headquarters at the school. And nearby at the crossroads, as it turned out later, my son fell. Until now, I can’t forgive myself that I drove by and didn’t feel anything, didn’t recognize him. ”

To the question “maybe you need to forgive yourself more?” there is no direct answer. There is a reflection on what brought Vitaly Kaloev fame “on all continents of the globe”: “If a person went for something for the sake of relatives and friends, then you can’t regret it later. And you can't feel sorry for yourself. If you feel sorry for yourself for half a second - you will go down, you will go down. Especially when you are sitting: there is nowhere to hurry, there is no communication, all sorts of thoughts come into your head - and such, and such, and such. God forbid you feel sorry for yourself.
About the family of Peter Nielsen, where three children remained, Vitaly said eight years ago: “His children grow up healthy, cheerful, his wife is happy with her children, his parents are happy with their grandchildren. And who am I to rejoice?"

It seems that most of all, Kaloev regrets the German volunteers and policemen from the summer of 2002: “My instinct has sharpened to the point that I began to understand what the Germans were talking about among themselves, not knowing the language. I wanted to participate in prospecting work They tried to send me away, it didn't work. They gave us a section further away, where there were no bodies. I found some things, the wreckage of the plane. I understood then, and I understand now, that they were right. They really couldn’t gather the required number of police officers in time - who was, half was taken away: who fainted, who else.

The Germans, according to Vitaly, “are generally very sincere people, simple". “I kind of hinted that I would like to put up a monument at the place where my girl fell, - instantly one German woman began to help, started fundraising,” says Kaloev. And then he returns to the days of the search: “I put my hands on the ground - I tried to understand where the soul remained: in this place, in the earth - or flew away somewhere. He waved his hands - some roughness. He began to get - glass beads that were on her neck. I began to collect, then showed people. Later, one architect made a common monument there - with a broken string of beads.

Vitaliy Kaloev is trying to remember everyone who helped him.
It turns out not quite: “A lot of guys from everywhere gave money, for example, to my older brother Yuri - so that he would come to Switzerland once again and visit me.”
For two years, every month they sent “a hundred local money in an envelope, for cigarettes” to Kaloev’s cell; on the envelope - the letter W, the secret of which the grateful addressee still wants to know.
Special thanks - of course, to Taimuraz Mamsurov, the head of North Ossetia at that time: “I appointed him to the ministry here, helped there. Not to be afraid to come, as it was believed, to a criminal, a murderer for trial in Zurich, in order to support, for a leader of such a rank, it was worth a lot. Special thanks to Aman Tuleev, Governor Kemerovo region: “He just gave money three or four times, part of his salary. And in Moscow he also gave me a little dressing up.

And letters, recalls Kaloev, came from everywhere - from Russia, Europe, Canada and Australia. “Even from Switzerland itself, I received two letters: the authors apologized to me very much for what happened. When they released me, they said that I could take 15 kilograms with me. I went through the letters, put away the envelopes - all the same, one mail is more than twenty kilos. They looked, they said: “Okay, take both mail and things.”

“The Swiss deported Kaloev quietly and imperceptibly.
“I arrived, I did not expect that I would be so warmly welcomed in Moscow. Maybe it was superfluous - but in any case it was nice, ”says Vitaly Kaloev eight years later.

“You can’t teach how to live after this,” he assures when it comes to the relatives of those killed in the plane crash over Sinai. - The pain may have dulled a little - but it does not go away. You can drive yourself to work, you have to work - a person is distracted at work: you work, you solve people's problems ... But there is no recipe. I still haven't recovered. But you don't have to go down. If you need to cry, cry, but it’s better to be alone: ​​no one saw me with tears, I didn’t show them anywhere. Maybe on the very first day. We must live with the fate that is intended. Live and help people.

Reception on personal matters with Deputy Minister Kaloev, of course, practically did not stop for all eight years: a national tradition plus the status of a famous fellow countryman. Ask for money for medicines, building materials for repairs, for someone to arrange a high-tech operation, - lists Vitaly. - I know, after all, both ministers-colleagues and their deputies - you turn to them. It didn't always work, but something did. Forty or fifty percent." The least refused schools, where they came for new windows or for overhaul. Or at all for a lecture from the Deputy Minister - "for high school students, about what principles should be in a person's life."

In a separate line - calls to Kaloev from the colonies. “How they got my phone number, I don’t know. “Can you send cigarettes?” - Of course, I will. There was a man by the name of Kuznetsov, he knocked down an Uzbek with one blow in St. Petersburg, when he began to pester his son. They organized a teleconference, I spoke in his support.”

Now, most of all, Vitaly wants to be left alone: ​​“I want to live as a private person - that’s all, I don’t even go to work.” First, the heart: bypass. Secondly, Vitaly got married last year, thirteen years after the tragedy. The only thing he would like "from the public" is to come to Moscow on Victory Day, join the "Immortal Regiment" with a portrait of his father: Konstantin Kaloev, artilleryman.

“I was provoked a lot on the topic of how, for example, Bashkiria, where most of the dead on that plane came from, from Ossetia, Ossetia - from central Russia, - says Vitaly. - They meant, of course, to bring to talk about blood feuds and the like. I always answered this way: absolutely no different, because we are all Russians. A person who loves his family, his children, will do anything for them. There are many like me in Russia. If I hadn’t gone and gone through this path to the end - I just wanted to talk to him, accept an apology - then after death I would not have a place next to my family. I wouldn't want to be buried next to them. I wouldn't deserve it. And for them, we are all Russians anyway. Incomprehensible, terrible Russians.

Vitaliy Kaloev speaks more modestly and harshly about personal achievements: “I think that I lived my life in vain: I could not save my family. What depended on me is the second question.

Upon learning of the plane crash, Kaloev bought a ticket to Überlingen. The pain in the eyes of the strange Russian was so great that the employees of the German services allowed him to take part in search operations.

The first thing he found was his daughter's broken beads. Today, near the German town of Überlingen, a monument in the form of a broken pearl string rises. This is the memory of Diana Kaloeva and other passengers of the TU-154M.

“At ten in the morning I was at the scene of the tragedy,” Kaloev testifies. - I saw all these bodies - I froze in tetanus, could not move. A village near Überlingen, there was a headquarters at the school. And nearby at the crossroads, as it turned out later, my son fell. Until now, I can’t forgive myself that I drove by and didn’t feel anything, didn’t recognize him. ”

“My instinct has sharpened to the point that I began to understand what the Germans were talking about among themselves, not knowing the language. I wanted to participate in search operations - they tried to send me away, it did not work out. They gave us a section further away, where there were no bodies. I found some things, the wreckage of the plane. I understood then, and I understand now, that they were right. They really couldn’t gather the required number of police officers in time - who was, half was taken away: who fainted, who else.

“I put my hands on the ground - I tried to understand where the soul remained: in this place, in the ground - or flew away somewhere. He waved his hands - some roughness. He began to get - glass beads that were on her neck. I began to collect, then showed people. Later, one architect made a common monument there - with a broken string of beads.

Revenge

Vitaliy Kaloev tried in vain to achieve justice. He repeatedly demanded explanations from the employees of the Swiss company SkyGuide, but they only offered him financial compensation. With the help of private detectives, he learned the address of the man who was at the control room that evening. Arrived in Zurich, found the right house, knocked on the door.

“I knocked. Nielsen came out, Kaloev told Komsomolskaya Pravda reporters in March 2005. - I first showed him with a gesture that he invited me into the house. But he slammed the door. I called again and said to him: Ich bin Russland. I remember these words from school. He said nothing. I took out photographs of the bodies of my children. I wanted him to look at them. But he pushed my hand away and sharply gestured for me to get out ... Like a dog: get out. Well, I kept silent, the insult took me. Even my eyes filled with tears. I extended my hand to him with the photographs for the second time and said in Spanish: “Look!” He slapped my hand - the pictures flew. And it started there."

“He had more chances to survive than my children,” Kaloev later recalled. Perhaps everything would have been different if Nielsen had listened to him and asked for forgiveness ... It was not difficult for the police to find the killer. Hitting the Swiss 12 knife wounds, Kaloev returned to the hotel. He could have run away, but he didn't.

Later, Skyguide's fault in the plane crash was recognized by the court, several of Nielsen's colleagues received suspended sentences. Kaloev was sentenced to eight years, but released early in November 2008.

About the family of Peter Nielsen, where three children remained, Vitaly said the following: “His children grow up healthy, cheerful, his wife is happy with her children, his parents are happy with their grandchildren. And who am I to rejoice?"