“Miracle on the Neva”, this event can be called by analogy with the Hollywood blockbuster “Miracle on the Hudson”. True, unlike the United States, where the pilots were immediately made heroes, the authorities chose to forget what happened in Leningrad. But thanks to the skill of the pilots and, of course, luck, the lives of 50 people were saved.
Tu-124 was heading from Tallinn. During the flight, the engine failed and both turbines stalled. The only chance to escape is to board the Neva. At an altitude of 100 meters, the liner passed over the Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge. Further on, the Alexander Nevsky Bridge, which was under construction, was almost hit by a plane - workers jumped into the water. We managed to stop only 50 meters from the Finland Bridge.
This photo is exactly 55 years old. Now she is known all over the world. And then it was dangerous to show it: even journalists were not allowed to the scene, and the police sent amateur photographers to the police station. We had to film from afar.
“I see people running along Granite Street. Well, I joined. And then he went for a camera and started filming,” recalls photographer Yuri Tuysk.
On August 21, 1963, almost the whole of Leningrad witnessed the incredible: the Tu-124 passenger airliner flew over St. Isaac's gathering, Smolny and immediately landed - no! - splashed down almost in the city center.
“I saw a plane and a lot of people. I thought they were making a movie, I don’t know. I saw a plane. There was a plane here, a Tu-124, as I now understand,” says eyewitness Vladimir Tsivinsky.
They tried to hide the incident, even despite thousands of witnesses, for fear of provoking panic. Then there were speculations, rumors, and later - oblivion. So what really happened? After all, experts still admit: this is almost impossible!
It was a flight from Tallinn to Moscow. Immediately after takeoff, the front landing gear jammed. Or, as they say, “leg.” The flight engineer manually tried to put it in place. Passenger Viktor Chatsky sat in the first row of the cabin and saw everything.
"They broke in the back luggage compartment the handrail on which clothes are hung, and went into the front cabin. There was a knock, they were trying to finish this “leg” with this barbell. But they failed. The bar turned out to be weak, it is aluminum,” says Viktor Chatsky.
At the same time, the passengers thought that everything was going as it should. But the crew understood: when landing with such a landing gear, the plane would break in half. From the ground they were ordered to sit on a specially plowed field. It was prepared at the Leningrad airport. But the crew was forced to circle over the city to run out of fuel. Otherwise, a fire is inevitable. And then there’s a new breakdown - the left engine fails. There was still a chance to make it to the airport. But during a turn, the second engine stalls.
“The plane became quiet, it lasted about 15-20 seconds, and the plane began to dive down. Command: run to the rear. One woman shouted: “Where we are flying, there is water!” The commander said in an iron voice: “Calm down, don’t leave your seats, we’re landing on the water.” And everyone sat calmly in their places,” says Viktor Chatsky.
There were only 14 seconds left before the fall. And then commander Viktor Mostovoy gives control to the co-pilot. Vasily Chechenev served in naval aviation in the past. The airliner literally flew over the scaffolding of the Alexander Nevsky Bridge under construction. They say that the workers jumped into the water out of fright. And here is a new obstacle - a tugboat is straight ahead along the Neva. Pulling a bunch of logs - a giant raft.
“The plane landed not on its nose, but on its tail. I say: Nikolai Ivanovich, what, is the second Chkalov or what?” The raft just passed, it fell right behind the raft,” recalls tugboat captain Yuri Porshin.
The pilots managed to pull the steering wheel. The plane literally jumped over the tug and gently landed on the water. The speed was dampened by the oncoming river current. Otherwise, the airliner would inevitably crash into the supports of the next bridge. Surprisingly, no passengers were injured. No one had even a scratch. The tugboat captain simply handed the pilots a cable and pulled the remaining TU-124 afloat to the shore.
“These people need to bow down and say a big thank you. They accomplished a feat!” - says Vladimir Tsivinsky.
It was certainly a miracle. But without the skill of the crew such miracles are impossible. The pilots saved not only passengers, but also people on the ground, and avoided destruction of the historical center of the city. At the same time, instead of rewards, they almost went to prison.
They were blamed for the accident and suspended from flying. When it became obvious that the equipment had failed, management pretended that no incident had happened at all. Today there are almost no living participants in that event.
An initiative group of citizens, colleagues, pilot students and former passengers are seeking to install at least a commemorative plaque on the banks of the Neva opposite the Tu-124 splashdown site.
On October 15, 1963, right in the middle of Leningrad, a Tu-124 splashed down on the Neva,
on board which were 44 passengers flying from Tallinn to Moscow.
Over the past half century, much has been written about this feat. The author of this material published a photograph of that plane at the splashdown site. It traveled halfway around the world, and our television crews (after a similar landing of a Boeing on the Hudson River in New York) said, not without pride for the fatherland: “And this happened here when the captain of the Boeing was a schoolboy...”
But for some reason they did not report the most important thing: in the episode with the American plane, out of 150 people, 78 were injured. In our case, no one was injured! Neither passengers nor crew members. And this alone speaks of the skill and courage of Russian pilots. After all, you will agree that not everyone can land an almost forty-ton vehicle on the water.
Suffice it to say that out of several dozen emergency landings on the waters of oceans, seas and rivers, no more than five were successful. All others were accompanied by plane crashes and loss of life.
It's not surprising. The descent speed of airliners is very high - three hundred to four hundred kilometers per hour, or even higher. At this speed, the density of water in relation to the object bursting into it becomes such that the plane can break like a match. If the crew has only a few minutes, and sometimes even seconds, to escape, it is extremely difficult to carry out such a masterly landing.
But what happened to our plane in Leningrad?
Breakdown during takeoff
The most difficult thing in aviation is landings and takeoffs. On that August morning, the Tu-124 was making a routine flight from Tallinn to Moscow. During takeoff from Ülemiste airfield, the mechanism responsible for extending the front landing gear broke down. To put it simply, a ball bolt fell out and fell onto the concrete of the strip (it was later picked up from takeoff).
Whether the mechanic overlooked it or for some other reason, the “front leg” of the aircraft was not produced without this part. This meant that it was impossible to land with such a malfunction without endangering the lives of passengers. In such cases, the plane usually capsizes. During the flight, the pilots tried to “knock out” the jammed landing gear and even cut through the bottom of the fuselage - it did not help.
There was only one thing left to do: sit down “on your belly” on the emergency strip - simply on deeply plowed ground. But even before that it was necessary to work out most fuel to avoid explosion. This is exactly what was proposed from the flight control command post to Viktor Mostovoy.
The plane was sent to Leningrad airport. Producing kerosene, the airliner flew in circles around the city. The flight attendants, on the orders of the commander, distracted the passengers with stories.
At this time, on the ground they were preparing to receive the emergency plane: fire trucks, cranes and, of course, ambulances were brought up. Everything went as normal until the moment when first the left and then the right turbines stalled. Ironically, this happened in the very center of the city, right above the headquarters of the revolution - Smolny, where the Leningrad regional committee of the CPSU was located.
The pilots were overzealous, trying to burn out more fuel. Fuel flow meters of that time were defective and often showed a ton more than was in the tanks. That’s why they tried to refuel them at airports a little more just in case of a fire.
After a shocking message from Pulkovo airport, Mostovoy was ordered to “straighten course” over the city. The flight directors still had hope that the airliner would reach the runway in a gliding manner. And, probably, this would have happened if the car was smaller and lighter, like the sixteen-seater Il-14 or Li-2. But the Tu-124 was an aircraft of a completely different generation. In accordance with the laws of aerodynamics, he nosed down, after which he began to quickly lose altitude.
Seconds counted
Mostovoy had not minutes, but seconds to make a fateful decision. The liner was at an altitude of less than five hundred meters! Tu-124 at an angle of about thirty degrees, cutting through the air, glided over the historical center of the metropolis. As if in a quickly scrolling film, the quarters of the most beautiful of cities flashed by. There was nowhere to land except the river.
“Go to the Neva!” co-pilot Vasily Chechenev, a former hydropilot, shouted to Victor. But Mostovoy himself understood perfectly well that there was no other way out. Neva is the only chance for salvation. And I was not mistaken. Working at the helm, Victor managed to direct the airliner towards the Alexander Nevsky Bridge, which was being built at that time. At this point the river makes no turns and is quite wide.
Having crossed the high trusses of the Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge at an altitude of only forty meters, the plane passed over one of the supports, almost hitting it. The lead waters of the river were almost touching the plane when a tug appeared straight ahead. With the last movement of the controls, Mostovoy and Chechenev jointly managed to lift the airliner by that “last inch” that was so necessary for salvation. After that, the Tu-124 ripped open the Neva surface.
Fourteen seconds have passed since the turbines stopped! The powerful oncoming flow of the river helped to quickly reduce the speed. The plane froze just a hundred meters from the Finland Railway Bridge.
Well, that boat that they almost crashed into helped them - it towed the plane, which was swimming like a duck. The tugboat commander, Yuri Porshin, managed to lift the wing of the sinking airliner onto the rafts standing off the shore. The wing bent when it hit the water and became like a ladder. Along it, passengers were able to get out first onto the logs, and only then onto land.
And on the other side...
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Leningraders came to see the passenger plane splash down. The police, as usual, arrived first. This is in order to not allow anyone near the plane, and, of course, not to allow anyone to take photographs. Such incidents were hushed up at that time.
To be fair, let’s say that Leningrad radio already in the evening of that day reported the safe landing of the airliner on the Neva. True, in a very compressed form. Sometimes you wonder: why such secrecy? Maybe so that people in the West don’t say that our planes are bad?
The author of this material was lucky - he managed to take several amateur photographs at the moment when the “law enforcement officers” turned away to see for themselves what was happening to the plane and passengers. The KGB officers confiscated the films from the remaining photographers.
I saw passengers and crew standing on the shore behind the cordon. Most looked terrible. Some had pale faces, others were greenish. Burgundy stains appeared on the cheeks of individual citizens. People began to gradually come to their senses after the shock. It was not difficult to understand their condition. After all, they experienced the moments between life and death. Imagine yourself as a passenger on an airliner whose turbines have stopped in the air, and at the same time it is rapidly approaching the ground. You're unlikely to forget this.
Among the crowd of fifty passengers and crew members, Viktor Mostovoy stood out noticeably. He was cheerful, although noticeably excited. Pleasant in appearance, in a blue Aeroflot uniform and a cap with a badge on his head. He looked like a hero. Yes, such was the man who had just saved so many people from death! Maybe that’s why the pilot at times looked at the crowds of Leningraders gathered with dignity and pride.
By the way, as befits a captain, he was the last to leave. Only those who were nearby saw that his hands were shaking.
Even all the beer in the crates survived
People from the arriving helicopter were already rushing to the scene. These were, of course, pilots and employees of Pulkovo Airport. Among them is the gray-haired General Pokryshev, a former fighter pilot, twice Hero Soviet Union. After the war, he worked as a shift supervisor at the Leningrad airport.
They wanted to quickly find out about the causes of the incident, reassure the passengers, and provide them with assistance. Since everyone was alive, all that remained was to bring buses to the scene of the incident in order to take the passengers and their luggage to Pulkovo so they could continue the flight. They suggested that people go by train. Surprisingly, almost everyone wanted to fly! So we left without our suitcases. As you know, baggage and cargo on airliners are transported in special compartments - holds, located at the bottom of the aircraft. But in our case, it was not possible to get into the lower hold. The plane did not stand on the concrete surface of the airfield, but floated in the Neva.
By evening the liner sank. Water penetrated through the niches where the landing gear retracts during flight. Only the tail stuck out outside. The very next day from seaport They brought in a powerful floating crane and used it to lift the plane.
Only after this was it possible to retrieve the luggage of the passengers and the supply of Zhiguli beer intended for the airplane buffet. The author remembers those boxes of alcohol well. Every single bottle was intact. Airport workers accepted them one by one. Such was the strict accounting and control.
I remember that one of the workers, who was delivering bottles to the controller, asked for a pair of Zhiguli bottles for himself: they said, well, they could break during a forced splashdown. The controller looked at the unfortunate man so sternly that he immediately moved away from the boxes.
HAVE A QUESTION
Was the Tu-124 really that bad?
More than once I have heard and read that the Tu-124 airliner was the “unsuccessful brainchild” of the design bureau of Academician Tupolev. Only amateurs could give such an assessment. When the design bureau learned about the successful splashdown on the Neva, they rejoiced! This fact alone suggests that the design of the aircraft is durable and airtight.
Well, if we get acquainted with its performance characteristics and compare it with others, we will see that the airliner is not bad at all. Here, for example, is the accident rate of this aircraft: of the 165 aircraft produced by Kharkov aircraft manufacturers, less than nine percent crashed over twenty years of operation. This is a good indicator, especially considering that due to the fault of the crews (the notorious human factor) more than half of the plane crashes occurred.
By the way, the world's first turbojet aircraft, the Tu-104, known throughout the planet, had an accident rate twice as high over the same period of time. So the Tupolevites are great!
What about accidents? Alas, accidents have been, are and always will be. It is impossible to foresee everything. Could the captain of an American Boeing have predicted that soon after takeoff wild geese would get into the turbine nozzles of his plane?
If the Tu-124 plane were terrible, the Chinese, Indians, Poles, Czechs and other peoples would not buy it, and monuments would not be erected to it in China, India and Russia.
The fate of the plane and crew
Only three days after the events described, the Tu-124 was taken on a barge to Vasilievsky Island, where it was cut into pieces with an autogen machine. Only the most valuable things in the planes were preserved - the pilot's cockpit and instruments. Later they began to be used as a simulator in one of the schools civil aviation.
At first, the main department of the Civil air fleet The USSR regarded Mostovoy's actions as sloppiness. He was even expelled from the 200th air squadron. But there was an uproar abroad: they say that a pilot who accomplished an incredible feat was sent to revenge the airfield. Many foreign media wrote about this then.
As a result, it was announced that Mostovoy was nominated for the Order of the Red Star for courage, and the crew members were nominated for medals. However, later Victor’s wife Zhanna Mostovaya said that the decree on the award was never signed. General designer Tupolev himself objected. The compromise decision was made personally by Nikita Khrushchev - neither reward nor punish.
True, the family of the brave pilot (wife, daughter, Victor and his mother) soon received a two-room small apartment on Vavilova Street in Moscow. Before that, they all lived in a small room in a communal apartment. Navigator Viktor Tsarev also received an apartment in the same building. The tugboat captain Porshin was awarded a certificate of honor and a watch.
Later, Mostovoy was sent to study at the Civil Aviation Academy in Leningrad. But he couldn’t cope with his studies - he got bad marks and was expelled. Victor continued to fly as a commander of turbojet aircraft, carrying passengers and cargo. In the early 90s I went with my family to permanent place residence in Israel. There he died of cancer in 1997.
However, none of the 44 passengers were injured. If not for a miraculous splashdown, the plane could have crashed in the city center on Saint Isaac's Cathedral.
Circles over the city
"AiF" found an eyewitness to the incident, a resident of St. Petersburg Yuri Tuiska, who managed to photograph an aircraft floating on the Neva. The picture went around the whole world, however, this happened 30 years later. Before this, Yuri Viktorovich was afraid to publish the photograph, because the police forbade all the eyewitnesses who had gathered in 1963 to take pictures: they took away the cameras and exposed the film.
“I seized the moment when the policeman turned away,” recalls Tuisk. - I lived not far from the splashdown site. That day I was sitting on the balcony and suddenly noticed that people were running towards the embankment. It was clear that something had happened. Imagine my surprise when on the river I saw a floating Tu-124, from which passengers were moving along the wing to the shore. I immediately ran for the camera. I remembered two children and their faces - like those of little old people. It was clear that the passengers had been through a lot. A man in a flight uniform stood out among everyone; he excitedly reported something to his superiors, who urgently arrived by helicopter. Then I found out that it was the crew commander Victor Mostovoy».
Viktor Mostovoy gives an interview. Photo by RGAKFD
This flight, en route from Tallinn to Moscow, did not go well from the very beginning. After takeoff, the front landing gear, or, as the pilots say, the “front leg” did not retract. The plane was sent to Leningrad, where it had to make an emergency landing.
Before landing, the fuel had to be exhausted. The Tu-124 was “cutting” circles around the city on the Neva when one of the plane’s two engines suddenly stalled. Air traffic control services gave permission to take a shortcut to the airfield and fly through the city center. When they changed course, there was silence in the cockpit - the second engine also failed. An airplane weighing more than forty tons was rapidly descending towards the famous St. Isaac's Cathedral, with the Neva glistening at the side.
Viktor Mostovoy and co-pilot Vasily Chechenev, who came to civil aviation from military aviation, decided to land on water. Having flown 50 meters over the Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge, and then over the supports of the still under construction Alexander Nevsky Bridge (now the largest bridge in St. Petersburg), the plane splashed down next to the Finlyandsky Railway Bridge. From the moment the second engine failed until landing on the water, 14 seconds passed.
Splashdown is a special issue. More often than not, the car simply falls apart. Before this incident, in the world history of civil aviation, successful landings of aircraft could be counted on one hand, but there were dozens of tragic ones. And here no one even had to provide medical assistance.
Brave Shurochka
During the flight, flight attendant Shurochka encouraged passengers in the cabin Alexandra Mikhailova. The oldest in the crew (she was 41 years old), she went through the Great Patriotic War and was not at a loss in this emergency situation. Thanks to Shurochka, there was no panic. Alexandra Mikhailovna passed away 6 years ago, the Crew aviation club, which unites industry veterans, told AiF. Viktor Mostovoy, who was 27 years old at the time of the emergency landing, died in the mid-90s in Israel, where he emigrated with his family in the late 80s. The co-pilot, Vasily Chechenev, is also no longer alive.
After a brilliant landing on the Neva, they wanted to award the crew with orders, but for some reason this did not happen, although the rescued passengers wrote a collective thank you letter. Aeroflot gave Mostovoy a 2-room apartment, where the pilot’s family moved from a cramped communal apartment.
The investigation showed that the engines stalled because all the fuel was used up, but the instruments showed otherwise, misleading the pilots. This case is being studied at the St. Petersburg University of Civil Aviation. Gives a lecture Vladimir Tsivinsky, formerly deputy director of traffic at Pulkovo Airport, who also witnessed the splashdown: “Under the influence of this incident, I chose the profession of an air traffic controller and later at Cape Schmidt (in Chukotka) in conditions of zero visibility I managed to organize the landing of an airplane, for which I received a gold watch from Minister of Civil Aviation of the USSR."
Did prayer help?
On the day the plane was rescued, a short announcement was made on Leningrad radio. “No articles in newspapers,” recalls Yuri Tuysk. - They appeared a few months later, although without photographs. The plane sank in the evening of the same day. They pulled it out with a crane and cut it with an autogenous machine.”
Passengers were sent to Moscow on the same day. “There is an oral tradition that among those rescued was a 34-year-old Bishop of Tallinn, the future Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy, who was flying from Tallinn to Moscow, told AiF Alexander Segen, author of a biographical book about the late patriarch. “Unfortunately, in the aviation archives the file about this amazing incident was destroyed, since only cases about disasters that resulted in the death of people are forever preserved, and here - not a single death.” Because of this, I was unable to document whether His Holiness was on board.”
The plane landed on the Neva a few hundred meters from the place where the grave of the St. Petersburg holy fool schema-nun Matryonushka Barefoot is located. Since then, people who are afraid of flying have turned to this blessed old woman in prayer. At the courtyard of Holy Trinity Zelenetsky monastery, where the grave of the holy fool is located, documentary evidence of assistance through prayers to the old woman has been collected. They concern not only aerophobia. And one more fact: the Severny Press plant, where the rescued passengers boarded the rafts, has an address in St. Petersburg: Tallinskaya Street.
Aeroflot's Tu-124 passenger airliner, flying from Tallinn to Moscow on August 21, 1963, was practically new - aircraft of this brand began to be produced in the Soviet Union only in 1962. That earlier morning there were 44 passengers and 6 crew members on board the "carcass". It is reliably known that among the passengers was the future Patriarch of All Rus' Alexy II.
Almost immediately after takeoff, the crew discovered that the front landing gear had not been fully retracted. We had to land, but the Tallinn airport wouldn’t accept us because of the fog. The controllers directed the Tu-124 to the Pulkovo airfield. At Pulkovo they prepared to meet the plane, which was about to land on the dirt road. Such a landing could cause a fire, so the crew under the command of V. Ya. Mostovoy began to fly over Leningrad at a low, half-kilometer altitude to generate fuel.
Meanwhile, the aircraft's flight engineer, Viktor Tsarev, tried to manually straighten the landing gear through a gap cut in the floor of the cockpit, but to no avail. Flight attendant Alexandra Alexandrova moved a load from the nose of the plane to the tail of the plane to ease the impact of the Tu-124's nose during landing.
At the next circle over northern capital One of the plane's two engines suddenly failed. According to the fuel gauge, there was enough fuel to reach Pulkovo, but now it was necessary to fly to the airfield not through the roundabout, but straight through Leningrad. In the sky above Smolny, the second engine of the Tu-124 stopped working, and for some reason the fuel gauge showed “0”, although a few minutes ago it was “200 liters”.
On August 21, 1963, a Tu-124 crash occurred in the sky over Leningrad. . It so happened that the aircraft had to be forced to land on the Neva. There have been 11 such splashdowns worldwide, and this one is one of four that did not result in casualties.
Route "Tallinn - Moscow" August 21, 1963. At 8:55 a.m., a new passenger plane Tu-124 of Aeroflot airlines took off from Ülemiste airport and headed for Vnukovo airport.
Some time had passed after takeoff when the ship's crew noticed that the front landing gear was out of place and jammed. In Tallinn, landing was impossible due to severe fog, and the nearest airport was only in Leningrad at Shosseynaya Airport (currently Pulkovo). The controllers decided not to send the plane to Moscow. Tu-124 flew at low altitude to Leningrad. All emergency services at Shosseynaya Airport were ready to receive the plane.
Aeroflot Tu-124, similar to the one involved in the incident
The fire truck arrived and ambulance, since the aircraft had to land on a dirt strip, “on its belly.” The thing is that an emergency landing with a faulty landing gear can only be landed on a special plowed, unpaved strip. This is the only way to avoid an explosion and fire from sparks upon landing. There was such a strip in the city - on the Neva.
At 11 o'clock the plane flew up to Leningrad and circled over the city at an altitude of 500 meters in order to consume more fuel. If a fire suddenly breaks out during landing, the small amount of fuel will reduce the likelihood of it occurring during landing. Airport specialists asked us to fly directly over the airfield in the next circle in order to see from the ground what actually happened. So they confirmed the crew’s assumption. And such a low altitude was also chosen for greater safety of passengers and crew, and fuel is wasted faster. Throughout the flight, the flight mechanic tried with all his might to somehow remove and lower the landing gear using a pole through a hole punched in the cabin floor. But no efforts were crowned with success.
At 12 hours 10 minutes the plane made the eighth circle, the airport was 21 kilometers away, according to the fuel gauge, there was just enough fuel left to fly to the airport, about two and a half tons (according to another version, 750 liters). Suddenly the left engine stopped working, there was fuel, but it stopped flowing. The Tu-124 crew received permission to fly through the city, but after a short period of time the second engine, right above Smolny, also failed.
It so happened that the plane was gliding at a low altitude over the city center, and everyone who was there at that moment was in danger. There was no other option but to splash down the Tu-124 on the Neva. The commander entrusted the control of the aircraft to the co-pilot, since he had previously served in naval aviation and had experience in landing an aircraft on water.
The aircraft began to descend:
- now it’s close over the roofs of houses;
- above Malokhtinsky Prospekt;
- at an altitude of 90 meters Liteiny Bridge;
- 40 meters from the water passed Bolsheokhtinsky;
- above the Alexander Nevsky Bridge under construction (at a height of 4 meters), workers jumped into the water out of fear.
Eventually, the plane landed near the Finland Railway Bridge.
On one side is the Alexander Nevsky Bridge, on the other is the railway bridge, on the left bank is the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, on the right bank is Tallinskaya Street. Just at this place the width of the river is approximately 400 meters. Before landing, the co-pilot maneuvered the plane very competently, landed smoothly, evenly, and the nose of the plane did not dive into the water, and the plane did not receive a strong water hammer. And the commander is for this a short time turned grey.
At this very time, a steam tug was passing nearby, which miraculously avoided a collision, and it helped pull the plane to the right bank of the Neva to the Severny Press plant. To strengthen the tow rope, glass was broken in the nose of the plane. By luck, there were wooden rafts on the shore. The wing of the plane was placed on these rafts, and it turned out to be a good passage to the shore. All passengers (there were 44 people on board, including two children) and seven crew members were evacuated and sent to Moscow.
The flight attendants need to be applauded in this situation; it fell to their lot to calm the worried passengers and answer their questions. It is unclear how they managed to remain calm, knowing that everyone was on the verge of death. There was no panic during the flight or when going ashore, but when they found themselves on land, only then did they begin to understand that quite recently they had been on the verge of death. The crew of the aircraft was immediately sent for questioning to the KGB, and the passengers were sent to the airport.
The crew of TU-124 no. USSR-45021. From left to right: flight mechanic V. Smirnov, navigator V. Tsarev, flight radio operator I. Beremin, aircraft commander V. Mostovoy and co-pilot V. Chechenev
A bit later
There were holes in the plane, and through them water flooded the ship, although special equipment with a spillway tried to pump out the water, but it arrived faster. By morning the liner still sank. The next day, the aircraft was dragged by tug to the Shkipersky Channel, where military unit. The plane was retired due to malfunctions and sent to the Tambov region, disassembled. Until the 90s, he served at the Kirsanov Aviation School as a simulator for school cadets.
Further events
After the Tu-124 landed on the Neva , the commission that investigated the circumstances of the emergency placed full responsibility on the crew. They even gave me a severe reprimand and fired me. But due to successful landing, the lack of casualties and sensation in the foreign press, it was decided not to punish the flight crew.
They wanted to award the Tu-124 crew with the Order of the Red Star, but the award decree was never signed. After some time, the Aeroflot administration provided two-room apartments to the captain and navigator of the aircraft. The captain of the tugboat who helped when the emergency landing happened was also awarded. He received a certificate of honor and a watch.
After this incident, the commander worked in aviation squadron No. 200 until 1978, then as a shift supervisor at Vnukovo airport until 1988, soon he had a heart attack and retired. In 1989, he and his family went to live in Israel, where he worked in a factory as a worker, and died in Kiryat Gat in 1997.
After a successful landing, the co-pilot for a long time worked as an aircraft commander, and then as an instructor pilot. He enjoyed great respect and authority in civil aviation. Died in 2002.
After 35 years, the program “How It Was” was broadcast on television. The heroes of those events took part in it, there was also a co-pilot who said that while the crew was repairing the landing gear while circling around Leningrad, they got carried away and forgot about the fuel, and there might not have been enough to get to the airport, and the sensors incorrectly showed the consumption and remaining fuel. the amount of fuel in the tanks.
There are currently a lot of materials about that miraculous splashdown. Filmed in 2015 documentary“Landing of Tu-124 on the Neva”, the events of that distant August day are widely covered. Many photographs and videos are kept classified as “secret” in the archives of State Security agencies to this day. A bright page in the history of our aviation, this is an example of the courage and self-control of pilots.
Despite the successful landing of the Tu-124 aircraft, to this day all aircraft are strictly prohibited from flying over Leningrad. But such a wonderful experience of this crew made a strong impression on pilots all over the world. Now emergency landing on water is practiced in many airlines using simulators. This August 1963 will forever be remembered by the Leningrad residents, who were able to see all this with their own eyes.
What happened to the Tu-124 aircraft is the fourth time in the entire history of aviation; all other cases were accompanied by the death of people and plane crashes, and it is not surprising. The plane's speed is about 400 kilometers per hour; if it descended and collided with water, the aircraft would have broken like a matchstick. It's not easy to make such a masterly landing when seconds count.
TU-124 splashdown on the Neva
Causes of the incident
The Tu-124 is a new aircraft, design and testing took place in a short time, and therefore there are many small flaws. It was one such small detail that played a fatal joke. It turns out that when the plane was taking off, a bolt fell off from its front landing gear, and it was later found on the runway.
This seems like a very small detail, but, as it turns out, it plays an important role in the fate of the aircraft. Without it, the chassis could not accept correct position and it jammed. With such malfunctions, the plane would most likely roll over during landing. So the only way is splashdown, and a successful one, which saved many lives.
The second reason that could lead to the tragedy was a malfunction of the fuel meter, which gave incorrect data about the available amount of fuel. This defect was often found in airplanes of that time, and all pilots were well aware of it, so they always refueled with more fuel than necessary. But not on this day. Moreover, in in this case the pilots deliberately flew circles over the city, they wanted to spend more fuel and leave a minimum just to fly to the airport. The device lied and the pilots, hoping that there was enough fuel, could have crashed right in the center of Leningrad.
So, the landing of the liner on the Neva is one of the first cases of a happy landing.
There are about four successful ones in the world. The crew, knowing the whole situation, made incredible efforts to land the plane in the center of Leningrad. The plane crash was avoided and no one was injured. Lifting a plane into the air and landing it are the most dangerous and difficult moments the entire flight. In movies they usually clap, but you need to clap when the aircraft has not only landed, but also stopped and turned off the engines. Often a small part causes an accident and loss of life.
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