On Monday, June 23, 1969, the worst plane crash in the Soviet Union occurred.
In the sky over the Yukhnovsky district of the Kaluga region, a military transport An-12BP and a civilian Il-14M of the Aeroflot company collided.
As a result of the disaster, everyone who was on both planes died - 97 people on board the An-12 and 24 people on board the Il-14. The total number of deaths is 121 people.
At that time, the facts of major disasters were hidden from the public.
This catastrophe was not openly reported, and not many people know about it even today.
This is a tragic story about how the fatal error of the crews in choosing the flight altitude claimed 121 human lives.
On that day, the 6th Airborne Company of the 108th Guards Airborne Regiment of the 7th Guards Airborne Division was tasked with flying from Kaunas to Ryazan. It was an elite combat company, which was sent to demonstration performances in Ryazan,
where the paratroopers were supposed to show their combat skills when operating on BMD-1 airborne combat vehicles to Marshal Andrei Antonovich Grechko, Minister of Defense of the USSR.
In total, the group had 4 An-12 aircraft from the 600th military transport aviation regiment: 2 with equipment were supposed to fly at an echelon of 6000 meters, and 2 with personnel at an echelon of 3600 and 3000 meters at intervals of 8-10 minutes. At 13:25, the last 4th An-12BP with the call sign 08525 (serial number 402503) took off from the Kėdainiai airbase and occupied the flight level of 3000 meters. On board were 5 crew members, including pilots Major Alexei Viktorovich Ryabtsev, Jr. Lieutenant Vladimir Vasilyevich Priplov and Captain Nikolai Mikhailovich Maslyuk, as well as 91 paratroopers.
As a result of the crash of the An-12 and Il-14 aircraft, all 96 people on board the An-12 and 24 people on board the Il-14, that is, a total of 120 people, died. These were the information from official sources.
But on that day, there were actually 121 people who died, since Senior Lieutenant Filipov took his 4-year-old son with him, and the child was not allowed to pass at the starting command post twice. Then Boris Filipov covered his son with an officer's cape and thus carried him onto the plane. The officer was taking his son to Ryazan to his wife's mother....