Vitaly Konstantinovich Kaloev(b. January 15, Ordzhonikidze, RSFSR, USSR) - Soviet and Russian architect, builder, Deputy Minister of Construction and Architecture of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania since 2008.
On July 1, 2002, all members of the Kaloev family (wife, son and daughter) died in a plane crash over Lake Constance. In 2004, Kaloev committed the murder of air traffic controller Peter Nielsen, considering him responsible for the tragedy.
Biography
Until 1999, Kaloev was the head of the construction department in Vladikavkaz.
In 1999, he signed a contract with a construction company and left for Spain, where he worked as an architect - he designed houses for immigrants from Ossetia.
Family
In 1991, Kaloev married Svetlana Pushkinovna Gagiev (born in 1958). Svetlana graduated in 1983 from the Faculty of Economics of SOGU with a degree in economics. She made a career, going from an ordinary bank employee to the head of a department. For some time she worked as a director of the commercial bank "Adamon Bank". At the time of the meeting with Kaloev and until the disaster, Svetlana worked as an economist and deputy director for finance at the Daryal brewery.
In marriage, the Kaloevs had two children - son Konstantin (born November 19, 1991 in Vladikavkaz, was named after his paternal grandfather) and daughter Diana (born March 7, 1998 in the same place, the name was chosen by Konstantin). Konstantin studied at the Vladikavkaz school number 5, where he managed to finish five classes. He was fond of paleontology and astronautics.
All three were buried in Vladikavkaz.
Plane crash over Lake Constance
By July 2002, Kaloev had been working in Spain for two years. He completed the construction of a cottage near Barcelona, handed over the object to the customer and was waiting for a family that he had not seen for nine months. By that time, Svetlana with her children had already arrived in Moscow, but she could not buy a plane ticket in any way, and only three hours before departure at the airport she was offered “burning” tickets on board the same Bashkir Airlines plane, which later crashed in the sky above Lake Constance.
On July 2, 2002, having learned about the incident, Kaloev immediately flew from Barcelona to Zurich, and from there to Germany in Überlingen, where the disaster occurred. At first, the police did not want to let Vitaly to the crash site, but when he explained that his wife and children were there, they let him through. According to Vitaly, his daughter Diana was found three kilometers from the crash site. According to the National Geographic channel documentary, Kaloev himself participated in prospecting work and found first the torn beads of Diana, and then her body.
Murder of Peter Nielsen
In the summer of 2003, Kaloev, together with Yulia Fedotova, the mother of another girl who died in a plane crash, came to the Skyguide airline. According to company employees, during the funeral ceremony in Überlingen, dedicated to the anniversary of the plane crash, “one of the relatives is a man with black beard”- behaved very“ excited ”and terribly frightened the head of the company, Allen Rosier. After that, this person allegedly arrived at the Skyguide office, where, communicating with the company's employees, he asked several times: “Is the dispatcher to blame for what happened?” and sought a meeting with Peter Nielsen, who was at the control panel that evening.
On February 24, 2004, Peter Nielsen was killed. The murder took place on the threshold of Nielsen's house in the presence of his wife and three children. The main version of the murder, considered by the Swiss police, was Kaloev's revenge. Kaloev himself did not admit his guilt, but he did not deny it either - when testifying, he stated that he only remembered that he had come to Nielsen, showed him photographs of his family and demanded to apologize. Nielsen hit Kaloev on the arm and knocked out the photographs, after which Kaloev, in his words, had a memory failure. Kaloev inflicted 12 stab wounds on Nielsen with a folding knife, from which he died at the scene. The next day, Kaloev was detained in his hotel room by the Swiss police, and that he returned home the same night.
AT North Ossetia Kaloev was appointed Deputy Minister of Architecture and Construction Policy of the Republic. On the day of his sixtieth birthday, he retired, a few days before that he was awarded the medal "
The first footage from the filming of the film "Unforgiven" with Dmitry Nagiyev in the role of Vitaly Kaloev appeared on the Web. Life decided to recall the details of the life of a simple builder who became the national hero of North Ossetia, as well as the causes of the tragedy that occurred over Lake Constance 16 years ago.
I only demanded that the people from the airline apologize to the families of the victims, as it should be humanly, and they constantly got out ...
“West is West, East is East, and together they will never come together,” wrote Kipling. But in the tiny Swiss town of Kloten, not far from Zurich, not just two civilizations converged, but two completely different mentalities that spoke completely different languages.
The Russian Vitaly Kaloev did not need any compensation or court decisions, he just wanted to finally hear human apologies from those who - albeit unwittingly - ruined his family. The Swiss Peter Nielsen thought only of the legal consequences. “An apology involves an admission of guilt, and this can lead to unwanted court decisions,” the lawyers told them.
Therefore, Nielsen did not let Kaloev on the threshold of his house.
I rang the doorbell again and said to him: Ich bin Russland, - said Kaloev. 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!" It was as if he slapped my hand - the pictures flew to the ground ... My eyes darkened. It even seemed to me that my children were turned over in coffins, thrown out of them, that is, from coffins ...
Further events were restored by the investigation. Beside himself with anger, Kaloev pulled out a folding Swiss knife Wenger is the most common folding knife that you can buy at any store. Blade length is only 10 cm.
With this knife, he rushed at Peter and began to shred his enemy, striking anywhere: in the chest, in the face, in the mouth twisted with a smile ...
Nielsen tried to resist, but in vain - in just a minute, Kaloev inflicted 17 stab wounds on the victim. Nine blows hit the chest - the knife pierced the lungs and heart. Several blows fell on the face - the mouth was cut on both sides almost from ear to ear, two teeth were knocked out. Kaloev also cut his victim's femoral artery and veins...
Hearing Nielsen's screams, his wife Mette jumped out onto the terrace and saw a terrible picture: her husband was lying in a pool of blood, and a terrible black-bearded man with a knife in his hand was standing over him. With cries for help, she rushed to the neighbors.
But Vitaly Kaloev, not paying any attention to the screams, simply turned around and slowly walked away on foot - as if on an automatic machine, he was going to the Welcome Inn hotel, where he stopped when he arrived in Kloten. Halfway there, he remembered the bloodied knife he still clutched in his hand. Kaloev threw the knife into some kind of ditch - the police then dug through half of the city, trying to find the murder weapon. Unnoticed by anyone - at six o'clock the streets of Swiss towns literally die out - he reached the hotel. In the room, he took off his bloody clothes and shoes, put them away, along with blood-splattered photographs, in a bag, which he hid in a garbage dump at the exit of the hotel's underground garage. I returned to my room and waited. What? He didn't even know what exactly. There was no point in living any longer.
Vitaliy Kaloev just sat in the room and waited for something, looking at one point on the wall.
Police special forces broke into his room only a day later.
regular builder
Before this monstrous tragedy, Vitaly Kaloev was the most ordinary builder from North Ossetia. He was born on January 15, 1956 in the city of Vladikavkaz, the former Ordzhonikidze. His father Konstantin Kambolatovich taught the Ossetian language at school, his mother Olga Gazbeevna worked as a teacher in kindergarten. Vitaly also had two brothers and three sisters, among them he is the youngest. At the same time, the parents were most proud of Vitaly, who loved to read since childhood. Already at the age of five, he freely read and learned poetry by heart, and at school he studied for one five.
After graduating from school, Kaloev entered the construction technical school, then served in the army, entered the architectural and construction institute, then got a job in the construction department of Ossetia.
In 1991, he married Svetlana Gagievskaya, who worked as the director of the local branch of Sberbank.
Soon the couple had two children - son Kostya in 1991 and daughter Diana in 1998.
Daryal", the son studied at the most prestigious school. Then the financial crisis of 1998 broke out in the country, many local enterprises declared bankruptcy. And then Vitaly Kaloev decided to find work abroad. In 1999, his construction department signed a contract with a Spanish company and he left build residential buildings in Barcelona.
01.07.2002
The family of Vitaliy Kaloev got on this flight by accident. In Moscow, Svetlana and her children had a transfer, but due to weather conditions they missed their flight and got stuck in Sheremetyevo. And after three hours of waiting, the dispatcher offered the Kaloevs three empty seats on board the Tu-154 charter flight of the Bashkir Airlines, on which a group of teenagers flew to Spain - the best students of the UNESCO special school, winners of various olympiads, who received free vouchers vacation on the coast mediterranean sea. There were several empty seats on board.
On the night of July 1, 2002, the Tu-154 collided in the air with a Boeing-747 aircraft of the international logistics company DHL, en route from Bahrain to Brussels - there were no passengers on board, only two experienced pilots. The disaster occurred near the small town of Iberlingen, near Lake Constance.
As it turned out later, the accident occurred through the fault of the controllers of the private Swiss company Skyguide, which controlled air traffic in this area of Germany. As the experts found out, two factors led to the disaster. On the eve of the tragedy, there was a change of equipment in the control room, but the new systems worked with failures and errors, about which the dispatchers were honestly warned by posters hung around the office. True, the dispatchers themselves did not pay any attention to these warnings.
Moreover, at the time of the tragedy in the control room - in violation of all norms and rules - only two people worked, one of whom, moreover, was absent for a lunch break. As a result, 34-year-old Peter Nielsen had to independently cope with two remotes and give commands to the pilots.
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 gave instructions to the Tu-154 to descend, although the automatic warning system for dangerous rapprochements, on the contrary, recommended that the pilots climb. The Boeing 747 also went down, but Nielsen, not hearing his message, made a second fatal mistake, mixing up the sides: he told the Tu-154 pilots that the Boeing was on the right, while in reality the plane was on the left.
Broken string of pearls", installed at the crash site.
Following Vitaly found the body of the four-year-old daughter Diana, which - to the surprise of all rescuers - was practically not injured. But the disfigured bodies of his wife Svetlana and ten-year-old son Konstantin were found by search engines only after a week and a half of work.
“I spent ten days searching for the remains of my dear children and wife,” he wrote on a website dedicated to the memory of the victims of the disaster. “My life stopped at this tragic date 07/01/2002. graves at the cemetery in Vladikavkaz, where they are buried.
In the course of rescue operations from German rescuers, Kaloev for the first time heard the name of the dispatcher Peter Nielsen, because for a long time the Skyguide management generally denied any involvement in the disaster over Lake Constance. After that, Vitaly several times approached the airline's management and asked the same question regarding the extent of the dispatcher's fault in the accident over the lake. But no one wanted to talk to him.
How to make money on tragedy
The investigation into the causes of the tragedy, which was conducted by the German Federal Aviation Accident Investigation Bureau, took 22 months. At the same time, Skyguide's management dodged as best they could. The European press also helped the Swiss in this, which from the very first minutes of the tragedy reflexively blamed the Russian side for what happened: they say, everything happened due to the fact that the pilots of Bashkir Airlines allegedly did not know English.
Then Skyguide's lawyers set a condition for the relatives of the victims: in exchange for monetary compensation, they had to give up in favor of the company all claims in relation to other participants in the disaster. The calculation of compensation was compiled with European meticulousness: for parents for a dead child - 50 thousand francs, for a spouse for a spouse - 60 thousand, for a child for a parent - 40 thousand. According to experts, such a requirement allowed Skyguide to file claims against DHL and even ... make money on this business!
It was then that Russian people looked with surprise at cynical Europe and were surprised: is it really like this in Europe?! ..
Only pressed against the wall by irrefutable facts, the Swiss through their teeth admitted the guilt of the Skyguide management, which did not provide the control center with a sufficient number of personnel on the night shift. At the same time, 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.
But Vitaliy Kaloev all this time lived with an obsession to achieve justice, even if it was illusory. He wanted people who treated the relatives of the dead like garbage to finally admit their guilt and ask for forgiveness.
If he apologized...
A year after the tragedy, Kaloev arrived at the funeral ceremony in Überlingen and demanded a conversation with the director of Skyguide, Alan Rosier.
I approached him, took out photographs of the children's graves and asked: "If your children were lying like this, how would you talk?" - recalled Kaloev. But he didn't even deign to give me an answer. Then I came to their residence and already spoke sharply. I said: "You took my family away from me, and now turn up your nose!" And forced the director to speak to me. He asked: "Are you guilty?" He snapped at first: "No. The pilots should have listened to their navigational safety device." "But, if your controller had not intervened, the planes could have scattered?" He nodded, "Yes." I still forced him to admit his mistake. I achieved what all lawyers and lawyers could not do! .. Then the director invited me to dine together, but I thought: "What, am I going to eat at the same table with the murderers of my children ?!" And refused. And the other parents agreed, and, as I was told, this Rosier was crying in that restaurant ... I hoped that a conscience woke up in him. But it was not so.
He did not even respond to a letter offering monetary compensation.
I didn't even look at this letter. Money in exchange for memory?! It was after that meeting with the director. I realized: they do not consider us for people!
Instead, he began to seek a meeting with the dispatcher Nielsen, but in response, in November 2003, he received a letter from Skyguide lawyers in which Vitaly Kaloev was notified that the company and the dispatcher had nothing to apologize to him for.
This letter was the last straw.
Since Vitaly Kaloev did not know where to find the dispatcher, he turned to the Moscow detective agency "Megre-2" with a request to compile a dossier on all those working in Skyguide. The dossier for a generous fee was compiled by the Swiss colleagues of the capital's detectives. True, at the request of the Swiss, Kaloev signed a guarantee obligation not to cause physical harm to any of the persons whose photographs were provided. However, as Kaloev stated, at that moment he had no intention of inflicting physical suffering on anyone. He just wanted an apology.
Then Kaloev, through acquaintances in Vladikavkaz, bought a passport in the name of a certain Vasily Glukhov. As he later stated in court, he simply did not want to be arrested immediately upon arrival in Zurich - by order of lawyers.
On February 24, 2004, Kaloev appeared on the threshold of Nielsen's house and again took out photographs of his dead children: "Do these children really deserve to apologize at least to them?! .."
Interestingly, Peter Nielsen, who was warned by Skyguide's lawyers about the persistent interest that the Russians show in his person, bought himself a Swiss Sphix SDP pistol for self-defense, with which he constantly went to work. But Vitaly took Nielsen by surprise - when he was at home, the gun was in a gun safe so that small children would not accidentally find weapons.
Out of frustration, the dispatcher hit the hand with the photographs, the cards with the portraits of Diana and Kostya fell into the mud, and Vitaly, in a fit of passion, attacked Nielsen with a folding knife.
If he had just apologized, none of this would have happened, ”he repeated over and over again in court.
Sentence
The 36-year-old controller became the last, 72nd, victim of an accident over Lake Constance. He left behind a wife and three children.
An hour after the murder, the police sent out an orientation for a man of oriental appearance, dressed in black trousers and a black coat. All roads were blocked - the police were sure that the killer would try to escape from the country.
They caught Kaloev by accident - when a hotel employee, after watching TV, decided to call the police so that they would check their bearded guest, who had not left the room for a day, just in case.
Already at the first interrogation, Kaloev signed a confession to the murder - he saw no reason to hide. At the same time, Vitaliy Kaloev expressed indignation at the fact that in Switzerland the investigation of the disaster is in place.
So you think that those guilty of negligent homicide should be put in jail? the investigator asked him.
For me, the most important thing is that they apologize. I don't want them to go to jail. You won't get my kids back anyway.
Why do you need these apologies? - the Germans were perplexed.
This is all I can do for my family. I live in a cemetery, thinking only about one thing: how to achieve justice.
Why didn't you return to work?
For whom to work?
For myself to start a new life.
It's easy to say that...
In October 2005, the Supreme Court of the canton of Zurich, Vitaly Kaloev, was sentenced to eight years in a maximum security prison.
When the chairman of the court, Werner Hotz, asked Vitaliy Kaloev to stand up to hear the verdict, he did not even move:
Why should I get up if I am accused of even burying my children!
The court also approved the agreement of lawyers with members of the family of Peter Nielsen, who filed a lawsuit against Kaloev: it was decided that Skyguide would pay the Kaloev family 100 thousand dollars, and they would give this money to the injured Nielsen.
After the process, the journalists asked Kaloev: if he so demands an apology from Skyguide, then does he want to apologize to the Nielsen family for the crime he committed?
I will find such an opportunity, ”Kaloev answered after a moment of silence. - I feel sorry for his children.
National Hero of Ossetia
Two years later - in November 2007 - by a court decision, Kaloev was released for exemplary behavior.
Almost the entire prison knew me, ”Vitaly Kaloev later recalled. - When I went for a walk, many people came up to me to say hello. But until I found out how and what, I didn’t shake hands with anyone: pedophiles and sexual rapists were also sitting there. I was afraid that I would shake hands with such a person, and then, I think, I would not wash my hand.
In North Ossetia, the release of Vitaly Kaloev was perceived as a national holiday. At Vladikavkaz airport national hero met by the head of the republic Taimuraz Mamsurov and fans of the Alania club.
In 2008, Kaloev received a high post in the government of the republic: he was approved for the post of deputy minister of construction policy and architecture of the republic. It was Kaloev who over the past 10 years has been overseeing all significant projects, for example, the construction of a television tower on Lysa Gora - with a revolving observation deck and a restaurant, just like in Moscow. Another project is the Caucasian Musical and Cultural Center named after Valery Gergiev, designed in the workshop of Norman Foster.
In this post, he became a real people's intercessor - a meeting on personal matters with Deputy Minister Kaloev is scheduled months in advance. They go to him with any questions: they need money for medicines, building materials for repairs, for someone to arrange a high-tech operation. They know that the national hero of the republic will not refuse.
Kaloev’s phone is also bursting with calls from the colonies: convicts throughout the country believe that only an official who has served time will meet them halfway. Moreover, most often the convicts ask to resolve the issue of prison packages or the opening of a prison stall where you can buy tea and cigarettes.
The story of Vitaliy Kaloev has already become the basis for feature film: In 2017, the Hollywood drama "Consequences" was released, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger starred. True, Vitaly Kaloev himself criticized the tape and said that he was dissatisfied with Schwarzenegger's game: they say that the former governor of California only does what he tries to arouse pity for himself, instead of seeking justice.
He seems to be asking for the whole film to be pitied, stroked. I will say that this was not on my part, I do not want to be pitied. I wanted and insisted that the authorities sort out what had happened, so that the perpetrators would be punished as they deserved. And that's it.
As many as 16 years have passed since the moment when the former architect from Vladikavkaz, Vitaly Kaloev, committed the murder of a Swiss air traffic controller. Through the fault of this employee, a plane crash occurred in which all his relatives died. Many are interested in what a man is doing today and whether he has a new family.
Previously
At that time, Vitaliy Kaloev worked in Spain, was engaged in construction, he did not see his wife and children for several months. Finally, the family had the opportunity to meet with the father of the family. When they were preparing for the trip, there were many circumstances due to which they did not have to go on this trip.
At first it turned out that there were no tickets, then the children were brought to the wrong airport, before the registration itself, the little daughter Diana was lost, but they flew against the odds.
For a long time after the death of his family, the man was waiting for retribution and punish Peter Nielsen, the dispatcher of the Swiss company Skyguide, who was responsible for the accident. However, Peter escaped with a fine and continued a happy and carefree life.
Having committed lynching against a young man, Kaloev did not admit his guilt, but did not deny what he had done, due to the fact that at the time of the murder he was in an insane state, and did not remember his actions at all. Although when the man was searching for Nielsen, he pursued one goal, he expected an apology.
Who knows, maybe if the young man behaved differently, then everything would have ended differently.
Vitaly was sentenced to 8 years in prison, while he was in prison in his name received a huge amount of correspondence. For 2 years, as many as 20 kg of letters have accumulated, when a man wanted to take them home with him, certain difficulties arose. The prison administration allowed to take only a specific weight, but even after freeing all the letters from the envelopes, it turned out to be more than expected. As a result, they decided to bypass the instructions and Kaloev was given all the mail.
After release
Only a few years later the man was able to find new family, his wife was Irina Dzarasova, who works as an engineer at OAO Sevkavkazenergo. The wedding took place quietly and imperceptibly in the circle of close people, according to Ossetian laws, the spouses did not register the marriage in the registry office. They live in a large and beautiful house, with stucco and architectural delights.
When Vitaly built it, he hoped that his children and grandchildren would settle in it, but, unfortunately, the spouses do not have joint kids.
Almost immediately after his release from prison, Kaloev took the post of Deputy Minister of Construction in the Republic of North Ossetia. During his reign, many beautiful buildings were erected in Vladikavkaz, for example, a television tower on Bald Mountain with a cable car and an observation deck that spins. The Caucasian Musical and Cultural Center includes an amphitheater and a school for talented children.
However, despite this, Vitaly believes that he spent his time on this earth in vain, because he could not save his family. The man does not want to perceive that there are facts that do not depend on him.
When asked by journalists whether he regrets the perfect act, Kaloev answered without hesitation: “If you did something for the sake of your relatives, then you can’t regret it, otherwise you will quickly roll down.” When they asked how he felt about the fact that Peter Nielsen had three kids left, Kaloev said this: “His wife watches and rejoices at how her children grow up, grandparents are happy that their grandchildren are strong and healthy, and who should I rejoice? »
Being in the position of Deputy Minister, Kaloev received every needy and tried to help, many appeals came from places of detention. Today Vitaly is retired and most of all wants to be left alone. In addition, the man has heart problems, he recently underwent bypass surgery.
The only thing he wants is to get to Moscow on Victory Day, take a photo of his father, who was an artilleryman, and join the Immortal Regiment.
Vitaly Konstantinovich Kaloev. Born on January 15, 1956 in Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz). The killer of air traffic controller Peter Nielsen, responsible for the death of the Kaloev family in a plane crash over Lake Constance on July 1, 2002.
Vitaly Kaloev was born in 1956 in Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz) into a family of teachers.
His father worked as a school teacher of the Ossetian language, his mother worked as a teacher in a kindergarten.
Was youngest child family, had two brothers and three sisters.
Graduated with honors high school. He studied at the construction college, served in the army. After being transferred to the reserve, he entered the architectural and construction department of the North Caucasian Mining and Metallurgical Institute. In parallel, he worked as a foreman at a construction site.
After graduating from the institute, he received the specialty of an architect. He took part in the construction of the Sputnik military camp near Vladikavkaz, intended for the residence of Soviet officers, whose units were withdrawn from the GDR.
In the perestroika years of the 1980s, Kaloev assembled a building cooperative.
Until 1999, Kaloev was the head of the construction department in Vladikavkaz.
In 1999, he signed a contract with a construction company and left for Spain, where he worked as an architect - he designed houses for immigrants from Ossetia.
In 1991, Kaloev married Svetlana Pushkinovna Gagiev (born 1958). Svetlana graduated in 1983 from the Faculty of Economics of SOGU with a degree in economics. She made a career, going from an ordinary bank employee to the head of a department. For some time she worked as a director of the commercial bank "Adamon Bank". At the time of the meeting with Kaloev and until the disaster, Svetlana worked as an economist and deputy director for finance at the Daryal brewery.
In marriage, the Kaloevs had two children - son Konstantin (born November 19, 1991 in Vladikavkaz, was named after his paternal grandfather) and daughter Diana (born March 7, 1998 in the same place, the name was chosen by Konstantin). Konstantin studied at the Vladikavkaz school number 5, where he managed to finish five classes. He was fond of paleontology and astronautics.
The death of the family of Vitaly Kaloev
By July 2002, Kaloev had been working in Spain for two years. He completed the construction of a cottage near Barcelona, handed over the object to the customer and was waiting for his family, whom he had not seen for nine months. By that time, Svetlana and her children had already arrived in Moscow, but could not buy a plane ticket in any way, and only three hours before departure at the airport she was offered “burning” tickets on board the same Bashkir Airlines plane, which later crashed in the sky above Lake Constance.
Collision over Lake Constance- a major aviation accident that occurred on July 1, 2002.
The Tu-154M airliner of the Bashkir Airlines (BAL) operating flight BTC 2937 on the route Moscow-Barcelona collided in the air with a cargo aircraft Boeing 757-200PF of DHL airline, operating flight DHX 611 on the route Bahrain-Bergamo-Brussels. The collision took place near the small town of Überlingen near Lake Constance (Germany). All 71 people on board both aircraft died - 2 on the Boeing (both pilots) and 69 on the Tu-154 (9 crew members and 60 passengers, including 52 children).
Despite the fact that both aircraft were over German territory, air traffic control in this place was carried out by the private Swiss company Skyguide. The control center in Zurich had only two air traffic controllers on the night shift. Shortly before the collision, one of the controllers went on a break; only a 34-year-old dispatcher remained on duty Peter Nielsen, who was forced to work simultaneously at two terminals, and an assistant.
Part of the control room equipment was turned off, and Nielsen noticed too late that two aircraft that were at the same flight level FL360 (11,000 meters) were dangerously approaching. Less than a minute before the moment when their courses were supposed to cross, he tried to correct the situation and ordered the crew of Flight 2937 to descend.
The Tu-154 pilots had not yet seen the Boeing approaching from the left, but they were ready for the fact that they would have to perform a maneuver to diverge from it. Therefore, they began their descent immediately after receiving the controller's command (in fact, even before it was completed). However, immediately after that, a command from the automatic proximity warning system (TCAS) sounded in the cockpit, informing about the need to climb. Simultaneously, the pilots of Flight 611 received instructions from the same system to descend.
One of the flight 2937 crew members (co-pilot Itkulov) drew the attention of the others to the TCAS command, he was told that the controller had given the command to descend. Because of this, no one confirmed the receipt of the command (although the plane was already descending). A few seconds later, Nilsen repeated the command, this time its receipt was immediately acknowledged. At the same time, he mistakenly reported incorrect information about another aircraft, saying that it was to the right of the Tu-154. As the transcript of the flight recorders later showed, some of the pilots of Flight 2937 were misled by this message and may have thought that there was another aircraft not visible on the TCAS screen. Tu-154 continued to descend, following the instructions of the controller, not TCAS. None of the pilots informed the controller about the contradiction in the received commands.
At the same time, Flight 611 was descending following a TCAS instruction. As soon as possible, the pilots reported this to Nielsen. The controller did not hear this message due to the fact that at the same time another aircraft got in touch with him on a different frequency.
In the last seconds, the pilots of both aircraft saw each other and tried to prevent a collision by fully deflecting the controls, but this did not help. At 21:35:32 BTC 2937 and DHX 611 collided almost at a right angle at 10634 meters (FL350). The vertical tail stabilizer of the Boeing hit the fuselage of the Tu-154 and broke it in half. Falling, the Tu-154 fell apart in the air into four parts that fell in the vicinity of Überlingen. The Boeing, which lost its stabilizer, lost control and, having lost both engines during the fall, at 21:37 crashed to the ground 7 kilometers from the Tu-154 and completely collapsed. All on board both aircraft (69 people on the Tu-154 and 2 on the Boeing) died. Despite the fact that some fragments of both liners fell on residential buildings (in their yards), no one died on the ground ...
On July 2, 2002, having learned about the incident, Kaloev immediately flew from Barcelona to Zurich, and from there to Germany to Überlingen, where the disaster occurred. At first, the police did not want to let Vitaly to the crash site, but when he explained that his wife and children were there, they let him through.
According to Vitaly, his daughter Diana was found three kilometers from the crash site. According to the National Geographic Channel documentary, Kaloev himself participated in search operations and found Diana's torn beads first, and then her body.
All three were buried in Vladikavkaz.
The murder of dispatcher Peter Nielsen by Vitaliy Kaloev
In the summer of 2003, Kaloev, together with Yulia Fedotova, the mother of another girl who died in a plane crash, came to the Skyguide airline. According to company employees, during the funeral ceremony in Überlingen, dedicated to the anniversary of the plane crash, "one of the relatives - a man with a black beard" - behaved very "excitedly" and terribly frightened the head of the company, Allen Rosier. After that, this person allegedly arrived at the Skyguide office, where, talking with the company's employees, he asked several times: “Is the dispatcher to blame for what happened?” and sought a meeting with Peter Nielsen, who was at the control room that evening.
On February 24, 2004, Peter Nielsen was killed. The murder took place on the threshold of Nielsen's house in the presence of his wife and three children. The main version of the murder, considered by the Swiss police, was Kaloev's revenge. Kaloev himself did not admit his guilt, but he did not deny it either - when testifying, he stated that he only remembered that he had come to Nielsen, showed him photographs of his family and demanded to apologize. Nielsen hit Kaloev on the arm and knocked out the photographs, after which Kaloev, in his words, had a memory failure.
Vitaliy Kaloev on the circumstances of Nielsen's murder:
In an interview with reporters, Kaloev spoke about how and why he killed dispatcher Nielsen.
"I knocked. Nielsen came out. 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 am Russia "). I remember these words from school "He didn't say anything. I took out photographs showing 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 I took it. 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!” He slapped me on the arm ... The pictures flew ... And then it started, "Kaloev said.
“I don’t remember already. I lost my temper. I lost my mind when the photos fell ... I don’t remember what I was doing,” he said. Kaloev did not deny that he killed the dispatcher, but he does not admit his guilt either: he stubbornly repeats that he was in a state of passion and does not remember anything.
“A year ago I told that I went to Nielsen, talked to him, but I don’t remember what happened next. I didn’t hide anything. And according to the evidence that they show me, it turns out that I killed him. There are pieces of clothing on my clothes Nielsen, traces of blood and something else. His blood is also on the knife. They didn’t say anything about my fingerprints. But some particles of my clothes were found in the knife. I don’t know how it really happened, "Kaloev said.
Kaloev repeated that he did not repent of his deed at all. "Peter Nielsen was rewarded for his behavior. In addition to him, SkyGuide director Alain Rossier should also be rewarded," said Kaloev.
“How should I feel sorry for him? You see, it didn’t make me feel any better because he died. My children didn’t return,” he noted.
Kaloev refused to recognize the Swiss court. “I told them so: the Swiss court means nothing to me. The court of my children is higher for me. If they could, they would say that I really loved them, that I didn’t leave them, didn’t allow them to disappear without a trace ", - concluded Kaloev.
On October 26, 2005, Kaloev was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. On November 8, 2007, by a court decision, he was released for exemplary behavior after serving part of the term. On November 13, Kaloev arrived in North Ossetia, where he was warmly welcomed at the airport.
According to a number of Russian media, on August 9, 2008, on the second day of the war in South Ossetia, Vitaly Kaloev was seen among the militias in Dzhava. His brother later confirmed that Vitaly was indeed in South Ossetia at the time, but that his presence was related to the construction of the Zaramag hydroelectric power station, and that he returned home that same night.
In North Ossetia, Kaloev was appointed Deputy Minister of Architecture and Construction Policy of the Republic. On the day of his sixtieth birthday, he retired, a few days before that he was awarded the medal "For the Glory of Ossetia."
Vitaliy Kaloev in the program "Live"
Vitaliy Kaloev now:
In 2014, Vitaly married a second time, his wife's name is Irina. Taimuraz Mansurov, the former head of North Ossetia and a friend of Kaloev, told reporters about this. But he refused to specify the details: "This is not a topic for discussion with us. Wife - good woman takes care of him. They are together. What happens next is none of my business. He lives in the same house as before the tragedy."
On December 25, 2018, it became known that Vitaly Kaloev became the father of twins. He had a son and a daughter. This was announced on Facebook by the author of the biographical book Kaloev Ksenia Kaspari. “Yes, four hours ago, Irina gave birth to twins - a son and a daughter. It was a surprise for me that it would be twins. My wife and I have not yet decided how to name the children. There are options, but we'll see," Kaloev said.
The image of Vitaliy Kaloev in the cinema:
Based on the events with the participation of Vitaliy Kaloev, a film was made "Consequences" (Aftermath). He played the role of Kaloev. The film was directed by Elliott Lester. The film also stars Scoot McNairy, Maggie Grace and Martin Donovan.
In 2017, director Sarik Andreasyan made a film in which he played the role of Kaloev.
Director Sarik Andreasyan noted: “Our film is about the fact that parents should not bury their children. As a father, I know very well what love for a family is - it was with this feeling that I made films. I wanted to pay tribute to this whole story, its main character. Our film is not just about a person - it is about history, about loss and about loneliness.
American rock band Delta Spirit recorded the song "Ballad of Vitaly" ("The Ballad of Vitaly"), which is the final piece in their album "History from Below".
German futurepop band Edge of Dawn hints at the story of Vitaliy Kaloev in their song "The Flight (Lux)" ("Flight (Lux)").
AdvertisingThe fate of the architect Vitaly Kaloev from Ossetia was tragic: he lost his entire family in a plane crash. His wife and two children were killed. They flew by plane to Spain, where Vitaly Kaloev worked at that time.
The architect himself blamed the incident on the Swiss dispatcher, whom he then killed. The story happened 16 years ago, and now Vitaly got married a second time.
Vitaliy Kaloev married a second time, photo: about family
In 1991, Kaloev married Svetlana Pushkinovna Gagiev (born 1958).
Svetlana graduated in 1983 from the Faculty of Economics of SOGU with a degree in economics. She made a career, going from an ordinary bank employee to the head of a department. For some time she worked as a director of the commercial bank "Adamon Bank".
At the time of the meeting with Kaloev and until the disaster, Svetlana worked as an economist and deputy director for finance at the Daryal brewery.
In marriage, the Kaloevs had two children - son Konstantin (born November 19, 1991 in Vladikavkaz, was named after his paternal grandfather) and daughter Diana (born March 7, 1998 in the same place, the name was chosen by Konstantin). Konstantin studied at the Vladikavkaz school number 5, where he managed to finish five classes. He was fond of paleontology and astronautics.
Vitaliy Kaloev married a second time, photo: tragedy of 2002
By July 2002, Kaloev had been working in Spain for two years. He completed the construction of a cottage near Barcelona, handed over the object to the customer and was waiting for his family, whom he had not seen for nine months.
By that time, Svetlana and her children had already arrived in Moscow, but could not buy a plane ticket in any way, and only three hours before departure at the airport she was offered “burning” tickets on board the same Bashkir Airlines plane, which later crashed in the sky above Lake Constance.
The collision over Lake Constance is a major aviation accident that occurred on July 1, 2002.
The Tu-154M airliner of the Bashkir Airlines (BAL) operating flight BTC 2937 on the route Moscow-Barcelona collided in the air with a cargo aircraft Boeing 757-200PF of DHL airline, operating flight DHX 611 on the route Bahrain-Bergamo-Brussels.
The collision took place near the small town of Überlingen near Lake Constance (Germany). All 71 people on board both aircraft died - 2 on the Boeing (both pilots) and 69 on the Tu-154 (9 crew members and 60 passengers, including 52 children).
Despite the fact that both aircraft were over German territory, air traffic control in this place was carried out by the private Swiss company Skyguide.
At 21:35:32 BTC 2937 and DHX 611 collided almost at a right angle at 10634 meters (FL350). The vertical tail stabilizer of the Boeing hit the fuselage of the Tu-154 and broke it in half. Falling, the Tu-154 fell apart in the air into four parts that fell in the vicinity of Überlingen. The Boeing, which lost its stabilizer, lost control and, having lost both engines during the fall, at 21:37 crashed to the ground 7 kilometers from the Tu-154 and completely collapsed.
All on board both aircraft (69 people on the Tu-154 and 2 on the Boeing) died. Despite the fact that some fragments of both liners fell on residential buildings (in their courtyards), no one died on the ground ...
On July 2, 2002, having learned about the incident, Kaloev immediately flew from Barcelona to Zurich, and from there to Germany to Uberlingen, where the disaster occurred. At first, the police did not want to let Vitaly to the crash site, but when he explained that his wife and children were there, they let him through.
According to Vitaly, his daughter Diana was found three kilometers from the crash site. According to the National Geographic Channel documentary, Kaloev himself participated in search operations and found Diana's torn beads first, and then her body.
All three were buried in Vladikavkaz.
Vitaliy Kaloev married a second time, photo: prison sentence
In the summer of 2003, Kaloev, together with Yulia Fedotova, the mother of another girl who died in a plane crash, came to the Skyguide airline.
According to company employees, during the funeral ceremony in Überlingen, dedicated to the anniversary of the plane crash, "one of the relatives - a man with a black beard" - behaved very "excitedly" and terribly frightened the head of the company, Allen Rosier. After that, this person allegedly arrived at the Skyguide office, where, talking with the company's employees, he asked several times: “Is the dispatcher to blame for what happened?” and sought a meeting with Peter Nielsen, who was at the control room that evening.
On February 24, 2004, Peter Nielsen was killed. The murder took place on the threshold of Nielsen's house in the presence of his wife and three children. The main version of the murder, considered by the Swiss police, was Kaloev's revenge. Kaloev himself did not admit his guilt, but he did not deny it either - when testifying, he stated that he only remembered that he had come to Nielsen, showed him photographs of his family and demanded to apologize. Nielsen hit Kaloev on the arm and knocked out the photographs, after which Kaloev, in his words, had a memory failure.
Kaloev repeated that he did not repent of his deed at all. “Peter Nielsen was rewarded for his behavior. In addition to him, the director of SkyGuide, Alain Rossier, should also be rewarded, ”said Kaloev.
On November 8, 2007, by a court decision, he was released for exemplary behavior after serving part of the term. On November 13, Kaloev arrived in North Ossetia, where he was warmly welcomed at the airport.
Vitaliy Kaloev married a second time, photo: today
In North Ossetia, Kaloev was appointed Deputy Minister of Architecture and Construction Policy of the Republic.
On the day of his sixtieth birthday, he retired, a few days before that he was awarded the medal "For the Glory of Ossetia."
In 2014, Vitaly married a second time. Taimuraz Mansurov, the former head of North Ossetia and a friend of Kaloev, told reporters about this, but refused to specify the details: “This is not a topic for us to discuss. His wife is a good woman, she takes care of him. They are together. What happens next is none of my business. He lives in the same house as before the tragedy.”
Vitaliy Kaloev did not talk about his wife, but he did not hide anything either. His new darling is called Irina, and the wedding took place according to the Ossetian rite. Kaloev explained his choice not to go to the registry office by the fact that in the registry office you only get a piece of paper. She means nothing to him. And so relatives come, everyone knows. Vitaly said that he wanted to start a family and asked Irina, she agreed.
Even before the ceremony itself, it is necessary to collect a ransom for the bride, and the Ossetian wedding itself takes place immediately both in the house of the bride and in the house of the groom. Usually this is a mass celebration with the participation of more than 200 people, acquaintances, friends and relatives. Fun always reigns at such a celebration, any uninvited neighbor or acquaintance can come to it, and they have no right to refuse him. At the celebration, you can always see a large table with food and sweets. The presence of a wild boar on the festive table has also become a tradition, but the most important component is three pies, which symbolize water, sun and sky.
In the new film "Unforgiven", the story of Vital Kaloev is going to be shown more realistically and listen to the remarks of the hero. Recall that now he lives in North Ossetia, he was released from prison in 2007, ahead of schedule. As he says, the pain of the tragedy has not gone anywhere. She just blunted, expressed not so brightly. In order to reliably recreate the events shown in the film, the director personally met with Vitaly, and Dmitry Nagiev played the main character.
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