Vitaly Kaloev term. Vitaliy Kaloev created a new family

15 years ago, Vitaliy Kaloev lost his entire family in a plane crash over Lake Constance. Subsequently, he killed an air traffic controller on duty at the time of the collision. Xenia Kaspari, author of a documentary about these tragic events, tells in her book how the murder happened and whether it was accidental or deliberate. You will learn more about the motives of the widower who has already served his sentence from the excerpt, exclusively provided to our portal by the EKSMO publishing house.

The documentary novel "Collision", written with the direct participation of its protagonist Vitaly Kaloev, tells about a plane crash over Lake Constance, which is considered the most scary page in the history of domestic aviation.

On July 2, 2002, in the sky over the German city of Überlingen, a DHL cargo Boeing and a Bashkir Airlines passenger plane, which was flying a charter flight from Moscow to Barcelona, ​​collided. Most of the passengers on the crashed TU-154 were children. Vitaliy Kaloev lost his wife Svetlana and two children in this disaster - 10-year-old Kostya and 4-year-old Diana. He is the only one of all the relatives of the victims who will take part in the search operation at the crash site. And then, without waiting for the results of the investigation, he will kill the dispatcher who controlled the airspace during the tragedy.

On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the plane crash over Lake Constance, the Eksmo publishing house published a documentary novel dedicated to the tragedy

“The police escort was Helmut Sontheimer. In his car, they quickly crossed the road, passing all the checkpoints without stopping. The wreckage was seen from afar. The Tupolev's tail, sunk in fire foam, lay right on the country road. A few meters away are the chassis and turbines. Twisted, soot-covered metal. Someone's hand cleared the Russian flag on the fuselage. Dozens of police officers and experts in protective suits. Bodies were removed from the wreckage.

Vitaly, I'm sorry, but this cannot be done. - Helmut (policeman, - approx. site) stopped Kaloev, who tried to enter the plane for the experts.
- What if my son is there? Or daughter? he shouted back. - I have a right! These are my children!
- Vitaly, we were allowed to be here only on the condition that we do not interfere with work operational services! Please! I'll have to handcuff you!

Svetlana, wife of Vitaly Kaloev, with her daughter Diana (spring 1999)

Vitaly stood at the wreckage until all the remains found there were taken out. Every time a stretcher-carrying policeman emerged from the darkness of the saloon, he shuddered, but forced himself to watch. Some of the bodies were so disfigured that a mere glance was not enough, and he ran after the stretcher until he was completely sure that this was not his child. The bodies and their fragments were piled in a clearing, where other policemen put them in bags and carried them to a truck parked on the side of the road.

Vitaly, do you want me to read a prayer? - The pastor saw that Kaloev was shaking from barely contained tears.
The priest wanted to come closer and hug Vitaly, but he felt that he was in complete disarray and did not at all yearn for this, but on the contrary.

Prayer?! - Kaloev shouted to him in response. “After all this,” he pointed to the bodies, “do you still believe in God?! If he is, your God, then why did he allow this?! Vitaly breathed heavily, holding back anger and tears.

Six minutes to Earth

[…] The expert asked Vitaly standard questions in this case: dates of birth, names, special signs, what they were wearing. In case a DNA test was required, a saliva sample was taken.
- And yet, - the expert, obviously shy, lowered his eyes, - we have photographs of already discovered bodies. If you are ready...
He handed Kaloev a pack of photographs. Vitaly looked through the first two, and looking at the third, he suddenly shouted:
- Diana! My Diana!

He heard his voice as if from a distance. Terrible, hysterical cry of a stranger to him. Vitaliy was blinded by welling tears, the world swam before his eyes. He lost control of himself, the soul seemed to come out of him, breaking ribs, tearing flesh. Pain permeated everything. Just one continuous pain!

Maya (translator, - approx. site) hugged Vitaly, trying to calm him down, stop this cry, but he looked through her, not seeing or hearing anything, as if he was not here. Maya turned so pale that she seemed about to faint. Helmut with difficulty tore her away from Vitaly and led her to Fresh air. There, she was examined by the ambulance doctors who were on duty at the headquarters. When they returned back, Kaloev had already pulled himself together.

Maya, tell them I want to see my daughter!

Kostya and Diana near a newly planted cherry tree in the courtyard of the Kaloevs' house (spring 2001)

Helmut foresaw this request and was afraid of it. The place where the bodies were kept was carefully concealed. In Überlingen and its environs there was not a single mortuary designed for such a number of bodies. And the remains were temporarily taken to the Goldbach galleries. They began to be built in the autumn of 1944 after a series of intensive bombardments of Friedrichshafen. Especially for this, a “branch” of Dachau was opened in the vicinity of Überlingen, where more than 800 prisoners of war were transferred. They were mostly Poles and Russians. They worked around the clock. In less than seven months, a tunnel four kilometers long was dug inside the rock. It cost the lives of two hundred prisoners.

And now, half a century later, the bunker, which was built for the Nazis by Soviet prisoners of war, suddenly became a temporary "refuge" for 52 dead Russian children. Understanding this terrible irony of fate, the Germans kept in the strictest confidence where they had to store the bodies.

Vitaly, - Helmut suddenly realized that he was talking to this unfortunate Russian, like a child, - you know, this is forbidden ...
- I don't care about their bans! - Kaloev immediately broke out. - Everyone already knows that the bodies are taken to the galleries. You alone make a secret out of it! If I'm not allowed to see my daughter, I'll go there myself!
- I'll talk to management. Maybe they'll make an exception for you again. You already recognized her.

The headquarters took a break to coordinate this decision with the ministry. Helmut offered Vitaly to go to the place where they found Diana. The girl's body was discovered the morning after the disaster on a farm twenty kilometers from Owingen. As Helmut said on the way, Diana was seen by the daughter of the owner of the farm, driving the cows to pasture.

Experts examine the wreckage of the Tu-154 in Owingen

I keep trying to remember the acceleration free fall… 9.8? Vitaly asked suddenly.
- Yes, 9.8 meters per second, - confirmed Helmut. - Why are you asking about it?
- I'm trying to calculate how long they flew to the ground before they died ...
- Vitaly, they died at the moment of the collision! - Michael intervened in the conversation (psychologist, - approx. site). - The planes collided, there was an explosion, a fire!
- Then why is Diana whole? - Vitaly asked him. She didn't even get burned! What if she was just thrown out of the plane at the time of the collision? And she was alive until she fell to the ground...
- Please don't think about it! Maya pleaded.
- Vitaly! - Helmut is only now truly scared for Kaloev.

Until now, it seemed to him that Vitaly was holding up well, but what was really going on in his head if he thought about it?

At this altitude, the pressure is low. If a depressurization occurs in an airplane and an oxygen mask is not put on for a few seconds, hypoxia develops, and the person simply turns off. Those who did not die at the time of the collision lost consciousness after a few seconds! the policeman continued.
Maya saw Vitaly take out a mobile phone from his pocket, open a calculator in it and start counting something.
"That's about six minutes," he said when he finished counting.

They drove off onto a dirt road. To her left stretched apple and pear orchards, and to her right, green meadows enclosed by a low wooden fence, behind which two dozen black shaggy cows were grazing.

The leadership of the Swiss air traffic control company Skyguide (which controlled the airspace in the collision zone) tried to evade responsibility by blaming Russian pilots for what happened. An official apology was made to the relatives of the victims and the Russian authorities only in 2004 (pictured is Alain Rossier, who headed the company)

Broken beads

The owner of the farm accompanied them to the place where they found Diana. The girl, she said, was lying under a tree. The branches of a mighty alder scratched the face, but softened the fall, and the child's body was almost not injured. Vitaly knelt down, lay down on the grass crushed by Diana's body and began to cry. Maya, Michael and Helmut stepped aside, deciding that Vitaly needed to be alone. A few minutes later they heard him scream.

I found her beads! - shouted Kaloev.
Vitali looked insane. He cried and laughed at the same time, and then showed Maya three mother-of-pearl beads in his palm:
- I gave them to Diana last year.
Kaloev knelt down again and began to fumble with his hands on the grass.
- Do you want me to help you? Maya asked.
- No need! Don't come! I myself.


Vitaly found five more beads. From a tree with a broken branch, he took a piece of his daughter's hair. All that was left of Diana, he carefully folded into a handkerchief, tied it up and put it in the left breast pocket of his waistcoat. This little bundle will now always and everywhere be with him. And at the site of the crash, a memorial appeared in the form of a torn pearl string ...

Vitaliy marked the place where Diana fell by dragging a boulder to it, and together they went to the Friedrichshafen airport, where the relatives of the victims flew in. Among them are Kaloev's nephew Amur and Sveta's brother Volodya.
- Vitalik, you are completely gray-haired! - Sveta's brother Volodya had not seen Kaloev for more than a year and did not know that he had turned gray in just two days.

Vitaliy Kaloev at the grave of loved ones. The photo was taken in November 2007, immediately after his release.

Journalists will then publish such different pictures: one at the Barcelona airport depicts a portly, middle-aged brunette with a slight gray in his hair, the other shows a completely gray-haired man of indeterminate age, hunched over as if he had put an unbearable burden on his back.

Vitaly carefully keeps the memory of the children. Nothing has changed in their rooms even 15 years after the death.

Volodya, together with Amur, flew to Germany on the same plane as other relatives of the victims. Volodya - in order to pass DNA samples to identify Svetlana, Amur just supports Vitaly. Until that moment, Kaloev did not think about people who, like him, lost their children. The realization that you are not alone in your grief did not bring him relief. But when he saw them, heartbroken men and women, he suddenly felt close to them.

Only these people, probably, can understand how he feels now. Supporting each other, they descended the ladder of the plane. Some carried wreaths and flowers in their hands, mostly field flowers, with small homeland, others - children's toys, books and satchels - gifts promised, but never bought during the life of children.
Kaloev felt sorry for these people, but at the same time envied them. Many of them still have children, and hence the meaning of life. And for whom should he live?

After the tragedy and the massacre of the Swiss dispatcher Peter Nielsen, because of which two planes collided in the sky, Kaloev said that he was "in a quarrel with God." But time passed, and Vitaly found the strength to build a new life.

In 2013, Vitaly created a family for the second time. Irina Dzarasova, who worked as an engineer at OAO Sevkavkazenergo, became his chosen one. She is younger spouse for 22 years.

Vitaly retired two years ago. As the former head of North Ossetia, Teimuraz Mansurov, told local reporters, “He just lives a normal life that a man of his age should live. Not buried anywhere, not isolated from anything. He lives like a real Ossetian, a sage...”.

And finally, God gave him twins - a boy and a girl. The children were born healthy, they feel good, just like their mother Irina.

"MK" got through to Vitaly Kaloev to congratulate him on this joyful event.

“Doctors say that everything is fine with the kids,” Kaloev said. - They were born healthy, everything is normal. My wife feels well too, everything went without complications.

The names of the children have not yet been thought of, but there is time, we will still think about how to name them. Life turned out so that children appeared and I again had the meaning of life.

The terrible tragedy over Lake Constance, which occurred in July 2002, shocked many. Due to pilot error, a Boeing cargo plane of DHL and a Bashkir Airlines passenger airliner, on which Russian children were flying to Spain, collided head-on in the big sky.

Of the 71 victims of the disaster - 52 children. Among the passengers of the ill-fated flight was the whole family of the architect from North Ossetia Vitali Kaloev - his wife, 11-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter.

Kaloev built houses in Spain, did not see his family for a long time, and finally they decided to get out to him ... Vitaly, the only parent of the victims of the tragedy, was admitted to the crash site, where he rushed the next day. The scattered beads from his daughter's baby necklace, which he felt with trembling hands in the grass, then became an element of the memorial at the site of the tragedy...

Having buried his family and erected a huge beautiful monument on their grave, he kept waiting for justice. However, the Swiss company Skyguide, which led the planes in the night sky, was in no hurry to apologize. And dispatcher Peter Nielsen was not even fired. For two years, Kaloev, according to his stories, lived in a cemetery. And then he decided to seek justice himself. What happened next is well known and became the subject of two feature films- Hollywood with Schwarzenegger in leading role and Russian, where .

Twelve stab wounds inflicted by Kaloev on the Swiss dispatcher, who did not want to apologize for what he had done and drove the Russian out of the yard like a dog, were pulled for 8 years in prison. But already in 2007, Kaloev was released for good behavior. He returned to his homeland.

The head of North Ossetia, Taimuraz Mansurov, appointed him deputy minister for the construction of the republic. Vitaly went to work with his head. Into the empty beautiful house that was built for big family He didn't want to come.

Under the leadership of Kaloev, many new buildings were built in Vladikavkaz. A TV tower was erected on the mountain, to which a cable car stretches, a musical and cultural center with an amphitheater and a school for talented children.

In less than 50 years, he had everything a man could dream of: a beautiful wife, son, daughter, favorite job. Everything disappeared in an instant, turning further existence into an endless nightmare.

Tolerant Europe did not want to understand the grief of this man, and then, when the irreparable happened, she started crying: “Savage! Barbarian! Madman from Russia!

The guardians of universal values ​​demanded severe punishment for him, not realizing that nothing could be worse than what had already happened to him.

The Kaloev family: happiness for four

Vitaly Kaloev was born in Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz) on January 15, 1956. His father was a school teacher, and his mother was a kindergarten teacher. The youngest child in the family, Vitaly learned to read early and spent a lot of time reading books.

At school, he studied for the "five", but after graduation he did not enter the institute, but the construction college. Higher education he did not go anywhere: after serving in the army, he entered the Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering.

While studying at the university, he managed to work as a foreman at a construction site, then he began to work in one of the first building cooperatives.

At the age of 25, Vitaly married Svetlana. The young wife was a girl with character: after graduation, she made successful career in a bank, and then became a chief financial officer in a large company.

At the end of 1991, a son was born, who was named Bones. Like any Caucasian man, Vitaly was proud of the heir and had high hopes for him. The boy loved his father very much and justified his expectations: like Vitaly, he studied well at school, was fond of paleontology and astronautics.

In 1998, the Kaloevs had a daughter, who was named Diana. Vitaly adored his little princess, but it so happened that he had to spend a lot of time away from his family.

Kaloev worked in the construction department, but financial crisis 1998 hit the construction sector hard. In 1999, he managed to find work abroad, in Spain. Under the contract, he went to work in Barcelona.

Additional flight

By the summer of 2002, he had not seen his family for nine months. Vitaly was in a hurry to finish work on the cottage as soon as possible and hand it over to the customer, because after that Svetlana and the children were supposed to fly to him in Barcelona.

What happened next was a fatal coincidence. Svetlana Kaloeva with her son and daughter flew to Barcelona with a transfer in Moscow. The weather failed, and by the time they reached the Russian capital, their flight to Spain had already left. There were no tickets for other flights, and the family was stuck at Sheremetyevo Airport for several hours.

And suddenly - good luck! Svetlana was offered three tickets for a charter flight operated by Bashkir Airlines.

This flight should not have been on the schedule. It also arose because of the delay. A group of schoolchildren from Bashkiria, students of a specialized school of UNESCO, as well as winners of various Olympiads, went on vacation to Spain. They missed their flight and the airline arranged an extra flight to take them to Barcelona. Schoolchildren and accompanying persons did not occupy the entire salon, and on vacancies tickets were offered to everyone. Three of them were bought by the Kaloevs.

Vitaly, having learned that Svetlana was still flying out of Moscow, breathed a sigh of relief. There were only a few hours left before the meeting.

Broken necklace

The flight did not arrive in Barcelona. Instead, the news came about the collision of two aircraft in the sky over Lake Constance.

Upon learning of what had happened, Kaloev flew first to Zurich, and then to Überlingen, from where he got to the crash site.

He was the first of the native passengers of the Tu-154 "Bashkir Airlines", who reached the crash site. The police did not want to let him through the cordon, but he told them that his wife, son and daughter were on the plane. The guards silently parted.

The plane broke up in the air and the bodies of the victims were scattered over a wide area. Volunteers could not stand it, professional rescuers could not stand it, and Vitaly continued to look for his relatives.

On the first day of the search, he stumbled upon the torn necklace of his daughter, and then on Diana herself. Unlike most dead body the girl was not mutilated, she seemed to be sleeping.

He did not lose his mind at that moment and continued to search. The crippled bodies of Svetlana and Kostya were found only on the tenth day of the search.

The family of Vitaly Kaloev was no more.

“The only consolation is a daily visit to their graves”

He buried them in Vladikavkaz, placing an amazingly beautiful monument on their grave, in which he put his whole soul and talent.

On a website created in memory of the victims of the disaster, he wrote: “My life stopped at this tragic date 07/01/2002. I have only memories to live on. The only consolation is a daily visit to their graves at the cemetery in Vladikavkaz, where they are buried.”

He has nothing left. There was only a desire to get an answer: why did the catastrophe happen and who is to blame for it?

Tu-154 "Bashkir Airlines" and cargo Boeing-757 airline DHL collided almost at a right angle. In the last seconds, the pilots saw each other in the night sky and with all their might rejected the controls, trying to avoid a meeting. But it was too late.

The vertical tail stabilizer of the Boeing cut the Tu-154 in half. No one on board Russian aircraft there was no chance of survival. The crew of the cargo Boeing tried to fight, but the liner, which had lost its stabilizer, lost control and also crashed to the ground.

A total of 71 people died in the crash.

First channel


First channel


First channel

"Scapegoats" wanted to make the dead pilots

The collision occurred in the area of ​​​​responsibility of the dispatchers of the private Swiss company Skyguide. That night, part of the equipment in the control room did not work, one of the two dispatchers left for lunch and only the 34-year-old was left at the console Peter Nielsen, which worked on two terminals at once.

Nielsen did not immediately see the dangerous convergence of the Tu-154 and the Boeing. When he realized that the situation was becoming critical, he instructed the Russian pilots to descend.

On board the Tu-154 was the TCAS system, which is responsible for the automatic warning of dangerous approaches. Unlike the controller, TCAS gave a climb signal. However, the Tu-154 crew relied on the instructions, according to which priority is given to the dispatcher's commands.

At the same time, Boeing, following the instructions of TCAS, also began to decline. Nielsen's last fatal mistake was that he informed the crew of the Tu-154 about the plane from the right, while the Boeing was approaching from the left.

Skyguide management categorically did not want to admit guilt. "Scapegoats" decided to make the dead Russian pilots, accusing them of not knowing the language and a low level of aviation training.

But the investigation commission admitted that the Tu-154 crew acted exactly according to the instructions. The fact that the instructions turned out to be imperfect cannot be blamed on the pilots. But the mistakes and violations made by Skyguide and the dispatcher Nielsen are beyond doubt.

"The Man with the Black Beard"

The relatives of the victims were in a terrible situation. Skyguide's lawyers offered them to drop their claims in exchange for a payment of between 40,000 and 60,000 francs, depending on the extent of the damage. At the same time, Skyguide, according to experts, could count on insurance payments that allowed it to stay in the black after settlements with relatives.

Vitaly Kaloev did not need money. He wanted these respectable gentlemen in suits to admit their guilt and apologize in a human way.

A year after the disaster, he met with the head of Skyguide Alain Rosier. He asked him all the same questions: about the fault of the dispatcher, about the fault of the company. According to Kaloev, Rosier admitted that the dispatcher could have prevented the disaster. Then Skyguide employees will say that their boss was terribly scared of "a man with a black beard."

In November 2003, Vitaliy Kaloev received a dry official letter, in which he was informed that Skyguide saw no reason to apologize.

Skyguide representatives sent Peter Nielsen to "psychological rehabilitation", trying to hide him from the attention of the press and relatives of the victims.

But Vitaliy Kaloev managed to find out where this man lives. On February 24, 2004, he appeared on the threshold of Nielsen's house in Kloten, Switzerland.

fatal meeting

Peter Nielsen had a wife and three children, and, probably, he could understand Vitaly's grief. But to the visit of "a man with a black beard", who handed him photographs deceased family, Nielsen was completely unprepared.

Did the dispatcher understand what the man who had lost everything through his fault was telling him? In any case, he did not want to talk to Kaloev.

According to Vitaly, he asked if Nielsen wanted to apologize, but he hit him on the arm and tried to leave.

The wife of Peter Nielsen, who jumped out at the noise, found her husband on the ground in a pool of blood. Doctors counted 12 stab wounds at the dispatcher. The examination established that they were inflicted with a folding knife. Nielsen died on the spot.

Vitaly Kaloev was detained at the hotel. He told the police that he did not remember what happened, but from what he was told, he could have killed Peter Nielsen.

Time does not heal

At the trial, Vitaly repeated: this would not have happened if those responsible for the disaster had simply apologized to him and other relatives of the victims.

October 26, 2005 Kaloev was found guilty Supreme Court Canton of Zurich and sentenced to eight years in prison.

In September 2007, a verdict was announced in the case of eight employees of the Skyguide company, accused of violations that led to the disaster over Lake Constance. Of the eight defendants, four were acquitted. Of the remaining four, three were given suspended sentences and one was fined.

In November 2007, Vitaly Kaloev was released early for good behavior. A few days later he returned to North Ossetia. Soon he took the post of Deputy Minister of Construction and Architecture.

In January 2016, Kaloev retired.

13 years after the disaster that forever broke his life, Vitaly married a second time. children in new family he did not appear.

He says that time does not heal, that he considers life lived in vain, because he could not save his relatives.

At the place where the wreckage of the planes fell, today there is a monument: scattered pearls of a torn necklace ...

How did it all start?

On July 1, 2002, a Tu-154 aircraft flew from Moscow to Barcelona, ​​carrying 52 children (most of them are the best students of UNESCO special schools, winners of various competitions, children of civil servants and leaders educational institutions), flying on holiday to Spain.

Before that, they were late for their flight - and the Bashkir Airlines organized an additional one. Moreover, other late passengers were also offered to use this flight. As a result, eight burning tickets were sold three hours before departure. Among the buyers was economist Svetlana Kaloeva from Vladikavkaz, who, with her ten-year-old son Kostya and four-year-old daughter Diana, was going to visit her husband, architect Vitaly Kaloev, in Barcelona. They didn't see each other for nine months.

How did the collision over Lake Constance happen?

At 21.35 UTC, the Tu-154 collided in the air with a Boeing 747 flying from Bahrain to Brussels (there were no passengers on board, only two experienced pilots). The accident occurred near the small town of Iberlingen, near Lake Constance, and, despite the fact that both aircraft at that moment were over the territory of Germany, air traffic the Swiss company Skyguide operated, and only two (!) air traffic controllers worked at the control center in Zurich during the night shift.

When one of them went on a break, only 34-year-old Peter Nielsen and an assistant remained on duty. At the same time, Nielsen had to work simultaneously at two terminals. Since some of the equipment in the room was turned off, the controller noticed too late that the planes were dangerously close to each other. A minute before the collision, he tried to correct the situation and transmitted instructions to the Tu-154 to descend, although automatic system warning of dangerous rapprochements, on the contrary, recommended the pilots to climb. The Boeing 747 also went down, but Nielsen did not hear his message, and also made a fatal mistake by telling the Tu-154 crew that the Boeing was on the right (while in fact it was on the left).

Seconds before the collision, the pilots of the planes saw each other and made a desperate attempt to prevent a catastrophe - but this did not save them. 69 people on the Tu-154 and two Boeing pilots were killed. At the same time, despite the fact that some fragments of the liners fell into the courtyards of residential buildings, fortunately, no one was injured on the ground.


What happened after the tragedy?

Two years later, a commission set up by the German Federal Aviation Accident Investigation Bureau determined the cause of the collision and pointed out the errors of the Skyguide management, which did not provide the control center with enough personnel for the night shift (and for a long time put up with the fact that only one controller controlled air traffic while his partner was resting). In addition, the equipment that was supposed to tell about a dangerous approach was turned off for maintenance. The telephone connection was also disconnected, and the backup telephone line was faulty.

The day after the tragedy, no one knew about all the details, but one desperate person had already flown from Barcelona to Zurich, and then to Germany - to Iberlingen. At first, the police did not let him into the crash site, but he managed to convince them that his wife and children were on board the Tu-154. As a result, the man's personal search was crowned with the fact that he first found the beads of his daughter Diana, and then her body. This man's name was Vitaly Kaloev, and the pearl necklace he found gave the name to the Broken Pearl String memorial, which was later installed at the site of the tragedy.

Who is Vitaly Kaloev?

Vitaly Kaloev is an architect from Vladikavkaz. Most youngest child in the family of Ossetian teachers. He graduated from school with honors, served in the army, entered the Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering, worked by profession. Until 1999, he headed the construction department in Vladikavkaz, until he signed a contract with one company and left for Spain to design houses.


© Igor Kubedinov / ITAR-TASS

Kaloev killed the dispatcher?

Then no one officially called Peter Nielsen the culprit of the collision, and Skyguide only temporarily suspended him from work and sent him to psychological rehabilitation, without even imposing penalties. A year after the tragedy, Kaloev arrived at the funeral ceremony in Iberlingen and, being in an excited state, terribly scared the head of Skyguide Alan Rosier. Then he went to the company's office, where he began to ask her employees if the dispatcher was to blame for what had happened, and to seek a meeting with Nielsen.

As a result, Kaloev received a photograph of the dispatcher at the Moscow detective agency, which he contacted after the disaster. On February 24, 2004, Kaloev appeared on the threshold of Nielsen's house, asked permission to enter and showed him pictures of his dead children so that he would apologize for what had happened. But, according to the architect, the dispatcher pushed him away, the photos fell to the ground - and then Kaloev "does not remember anything."

The court found that Kaloev inflicted 12 stab wounds on Nielsen, from which he died. The murder took place in the presence of the dispatcher's wife and his three children. Kaloev received eight years in prison strict regime. However, after some time, the man repented and handed over the $150,000 compensation paid by the airline to the family of the dispatcher. Later, Kaloev was released ahead of schedule and returned to his homeland, where he was extremely warmly (almost like a hero) received at the airport, which contributed to the appearance of perplexed people.


Is Aftermath the first film to deal with this plane crash?

No, before that the collision over Lake Constance was covered in detail in two National Geographic TV series (“Air Crash Investigation” and “Seconds to Disaster”), several documentaries and the TV movie “Flying in the Night - Disaster over Überlingen”. It also formed the basis of a German film and even a Russian one.

This text is one of them. 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 the title 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 found the time to meet with a correspondent from Lenta.ru and 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 his 60th birthday, he received this the highest award from the hands of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic North Ossetia Alania Dzhanaev Boris Borisovich.

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 an employee of the Skyguide air traffic control company, Peter Nielsen, ended in the murder of the dispatcher on the threshold of his 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 showed him with a gesture that he invited me to 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 the photographs, on which were 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, resentment 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 then it started.

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 TV tower on Bald Mountain - beautiful, with a cable car, a revolving observation deck and a restaurant - and the Valery Gergiev Caucasian Music and Cultural Center, designed in the workshop of Norman Foster. Both objects have passed all the formalities - it remains to wait for funding. The tower, apparently, is more needed: the current television tower in North Ossetia is about half a century old, the state corresponds. But the center is more unusual: several halls, an amphitheater, a school for gifted children. “A technically very complex project - linear calculations, non-linear calculations, each element separately and the entire structure as a whole,” the retired deputy minister assesses the work of Foster's colleagues.

O personal achievements Vitaliy Kaloev responds more modestly and harshly: “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 in the role of Vitaly Schwarzenegger will be revealed in a new way - not like " the 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 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.

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. The Russian side should have acted the same way. Instead, it's an ugly anti-legal show,” commented Vladimir Ovchinsky, a retired police major-general, now adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, on the solemn meeting of a Swiss prisoner at Domodedovo. Opponents of the glorification of Kaloev were especially protested by the statement of the Nashi movement: “Kaloev turned out to be ... A man with capital letter. And he was punished and humiliated for the whole country ... If there were at least a little more people like Kaloev, the attitude towards Russia would be completely different. Worldwide".

“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.

Photo: Valery Melnikov / Kommersant

“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 with a surname, 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.

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