39 years ago, on August 11, 1979, there was one of the worst plane crashes in the history of the USSR: two Tu-134 passenger aircraft collided in the sky over Dneprodzerzhinsk. As a result, 178 people died, including 17 members football team "Pakhtakor"... Air traffic controllers were found guilty of this tragedy, although the circumstances of the disaster seem to many to be too strange and still give rise to many versions regarding its causes.

One of the liners was heading from Voronezh to Chisinau, there were 88 passengers and 6 crew members on board. The second plane was on its way from Tashkent to Minsk. In addition to 14 football players, a coach, a doctor and an administrator, there were another 60 passengers and 7 crew members on board. All 178 people died in this disaster, including 36 children.

The plane crash was reported in the media only a week later, and even then in passing, on the last page of a sports publication, in a small note that spoke about the funeral of the dead football players in Tashkent. There was no information about this in the central press. The tragedy would not have become so resonant if members of a major league football team were not among the dead. According to many fans, this was the best squad in the history of the Tashkent club's existence. The team was heading to the next match of the USSR championship in Minsk, where it was supposed to play with the local Dynamo.

The head coach of the team Oleg Bazilevich miraculously survived, who went to see his family and had to get to Minsk on his own. The club's masseur, Dvornikov, was also lucky to avoid tragedy: the day before, he and his friends drank too much and missed the flight. But one of the best football players of the team, Mikhail An, was injured a few days earlier and was not supposed to fly, but he was persuaded to go along with everyone for the company. Sirozhiddin Bazarov, a player of the youth team, who celebrated his 18th birthday the day before and stayed in Tashkent for a day, accidentally got on the flight.

Two dispatchers of the Kharkov control center, Nikolai Zhukovsky and Vladimir Sumsky, were found guilty of the tragedy. Both planes crossed each other at an altitude of 8400 meters. Shift senior Sergeev sent a young inexperienced dispatcher Zhukovsky to a difficult section. According to his calculations, the planes had to pass the conditional intersection point with a difference of three minutes, but in fact the interval was less than one minute. Sumskiy checked the calculations of a young colleague and found an error. He took control and ordered the Belarusian liner to take another flight level (go to an altitude of 9000 meters).

The dispatcher received an indistinct answer, but did not demand confirmation of the execution of his command. At that moment, 11 aircraft were simultaneously connected. Due to radio interference and overlapping replicas, the Tu-134 did not accept the dispatcher's command. The collision took place in overcast conditions, and the crews could not notice each other in advance. The dispatchers of Sumy and Zhukovsky were sentenced to 15 years in a general regime colony. The first served a term of 6.5 years, after which he was released, and the second, according to rumors, committed suicide.

Later, several versions were put forward about the causes of the disaster. According to one of them, the tragedy happened through the fault of the first person of the state: supposedly the airspace was “cleared” that day because Brezhnev was flying south. But, as it turned out, at that time he had already been in Crimea for several days. Shortly before the disaster, there was indeed a "letter" flight, as the transportation of dignitaries was called. Echelons of movement were freed for him, but this did not create any additional difficulties - the collision occurred an hour and a half after that.

Coach Oleg Bazilevich later expressed the following version: “ It seems to me that Pakhtakor died because of the carelessness of our air defense systems, and became their next victim. The plane, I believe, was shot down where it was impossible for him to appear ... Just because of the controller's mistake, the plane with the players flew into the air over some defensive object ...". Some relatives of the deceased footballers also adhered to this version. However, at this time, military exercises were not conducted on this territory, and it is hardly possible to view defense objects from a height of 8400 meters in cloudy conditions. In addition, the nature of damage from an explosion is significantly different from damage from a collision and a fall.

Obviously, the reason for the collision was the controller's mistake: having received an indistinct answer from the pilot, he had to duplicate the command and demand a second confirmation of its receipt (this is what the court called "a gross violation of the phraseology of radio exchange").

After the disaster, a new team of players from 15 clubs was assembled. It was decided to keep Pakhtakor's place in the top league of the USSR championship for three years. The team finished in ninth place that season. The death of football players shocked Uzbekistan. Journalist Eduard Avanesov responded to this tragedy with a requiem, which contained the following lines:
Years fly by, but the pain does not subside
My sorrow soared above the mountains.
Birds die on the flight
You died in flight, "Pakhtakor".

The details of this plane crash became known only a few years later, as well as many other tragic pages in the history of the Land of the Soviets. Today about
, reading is interesting and exciting. After all, such stories are transferred to a completely different era.

The tragedy happened in the morning Moscow time, when the plane made most of the way to Medellin International Airport in the Colombian capital Bogota.

There were 81 people on board, of which nine were crew members and 72 were passengers. Among the passengers were 27 football players of the Chapecoense team, as well as members of the club delegation and journalists.

The exact number of victims has not been reported at the moment, and in the club's Facebook group, fans leave messages on the wall with the hashtag “live”.

The actions of the rescuers are complicated by the fact that the plane crashed in a mountainous area, but one of the Colombian hospitals has already reported first the arrival of five passengers who survived the accident, and then about five more.

360 Radio Colombia reported that the crew of the charter flight had been alerting ground services to a low fuel level. The pilot made the decision to make an emergency landing, but the plane did not reach the nearest airport and crashed in the La Union area, 37 km from the destination - the city of Medellin.

In addition, the first photos from the scene appeared on the network. One of them shows the emblem of the Brazilian club.

According to the latest information, from ten to 16 people survived, and among them there are definitely three Chapecoense players: Alan Rushel, Danilo Padilla and Jackson Vollman. At the same time, it is reported that at least 25 people have already become victims of the tragedy.

The dispatchers became aware of the aircraft's electronics failure even before the crash after the pilot reported, who then circled over the ground for a long time, choosing a place for an emergency landing so that the plane would not explode on contact with the ground, which helped some passengers survive.

Chapecoense was founded in 1973, is a five-time champion of the state of Santa Catarina and is now the ninth place in the ranking of the Brazilian Football Confederation.

After finishing second in Serie B in 2013, the Chapeco club returned to the elite national division 35 years later.

Interestingly, the first place in the Serie B championship that year was taken by the most titled Brazilian club Palmeiras, which this season, one round before the finish of the championship, secured the ninth victory in the Brazilian national championship.

It was in the match against Chapecoense, currently ranked ninth in the league table, that Palmeiras secured the title, winning 1-0.

Chapecoense, after returning to the elite, took first 15th and then 14th place and at the end of the 2015 season qualified for the second most important club tournament in South America - the Sudamericana Cup.

According to the rules of the tournament, Brazilian teams start in it from the second stage with confrontations with their compatriots. To break into the main draw, Chapecoense had to overcome the resistance of Cuiaba from Serie C, which was done, although not without difficulty (0: 1, 3: 1).

In the main round, Chapecoense first faced Argentine Independiente and advanced to the quarterfinals after two zero draws and a penalty shootout victory.

In the quarterfinals, the Brazilian team beat the Colombian Junior (0: 1, 3: 0), and then in the semifinals, due to a goal on an away field, they were stronger than the Argentinean San Lorenzo (1: 1, 0: 0).

In the final, Chapecoense was supposed to meet with another Colombian team - Atletico Nacional. The first meeting was scheduled for November 30 and was to take place in the capital of Colombia, and on December 7, the opponents were to play in Chapeco.

The fate of the final is currently unknown, but, apparently, CONMEBOL (South American Football Confederation) will cancel the confrontation, and this year's winner will not be revealed.

The most famous footballer of the Chapecoense is the midfielder, who played for Atletico Madrid from 2007 to 2010.

The only legionnaire of the team, the 28-year-old Argentinian, in 2012, had 13 meetings for the Spanish "Villarreal", scoring one goal.

The most promising footballer of the team is the Brazilian national team player, who was bought from Gremio by the German Hoffenheim before this season, but rented out to Chapecoense.

Other news and materials can be viewed on the chronicles, as well as in the groups of the sports department on social networks

On September 7, 2011, the Yak-42 aircraft of the Yak Service airline crashed during takeoff from the Tunoshna airport in the Yaroslavl region. On board the plane was the Lokomotiv hockey team (Yaroslavl), which flew to the match in Minsk. According to preliminary data, there were people on board.

July 15, 2009 In the north-west of Iran, a Tu-154M plane of the Iranian airline Caspian Airlines crashed while flying from Tehran to Yerevan. The Iranian youth judo team was on board. Athletes flew to Armenia for training, and then had to fly to Hungary to participate in competitions. All 168 people who made this flight were killed.

August 24, 2008 in Kyrgyzstan, a Boeing-737 plane crashed on its way from Bishkek to Tehran. There were 90 people on board, including 17 members of the Iranian youth volleyball team. Ten of them died. 25 passengers and crew members managed to escape.

April 27, 1993 near Gabon, Africa, a DHC-5 Buffalo, carrying members of the Zambian football team, crashed at sea as a result of an engine malfunction. A total of 30 people died, including 18 football players.

June 7, 1989 A DC-8-60 plane crash occurred at the airport in the capital of Suriname, Paramaribo, South America, killing 23 Dutch football players of Surinamese origin on board the crashed plane. A total of 176 people died (out of 187 passengers and crew).

December 8, 1987 near Lima, Peru, explosions aboard an F-27 plane killed the Alliance football team. The bodies of the dead could not be found as the plane crashed into the sea. It is known that in total there were 43 people on the plane.

March 14, 1980 22 members of the US national boxing team were killed in the plane crash of the Polish Il-62 plane near Warsaw (Poland).

August 11, 1979 Above the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk (Ukraine), a Tu-134 aircraft, performing a Tashkent-Minsk flight, collided with an aircraft flying from Chelyabinsk to Chisinau. Killed 178 people (165 passengers and 13 crew members), from Uzbekistan, which was playing in the top league at the time. The team flew to Minsk to play with local Dynamo.

November 29, 1975 In a plane crash, the team of Formula-1 racers Embassy Racing with Graham Hill, pilot Graham Hill, was killed. The six-seater Piper Aztec, on which the team was returning from races in France to London, crashed and burned while landing.

October 13, 1972 In the Andes, part of the rugby team from Montevideo (Uruguay) was killed in a plane crash on the way to the capital of Chile, the city of Santiago.

A total of 45 people were on board the FH-227 aircraft, of which 16 survived.

December 31, 1970 Air-Liquid, an amateur football team from Algeria, was killed in a plane crash in full force on its way to a friendly match in Spain.

November 14, 1970 In Virginia, USA, 37 players of the Marshall University (Huntington, West Virginia) American football team were killed in a plane crash. In addition to the athletes, members of the coaching staff, fans, as well as the head of the sports department (75 people in total) were on board the aircraft. No one survived.

April 1, 1970 An-24 passenger plane crashed near Krasnoyarsk. All passengers (including the youth volleyball team) and crew members were killed.

September 26, 1969 in the Andes, on the way to La Paz, Bolivia, a plane crashed with 25 players of the Strongest Bolivian football team. Killed 19 players and club leaders.

April 3, 1961 a Douglas C-47A plane crashed in the Cordillera, Chile. The disaster killed everyone on board - the Chilean Green Cross football team and crew members (24 people).

February 15, 1961 while landing in Belgium, a Sabena Boeing 707 crashed on a New York-Brussels route. All 72 people on board were killed, as well as one person on the ground. The US figure skating team (34 athletes and coaches), which was heading to the World Championships in Prague (Czechoslovakia), died in the crash. The 1961 World Figure Skating Championships were canceled in mourning for the dead.

February 6, 1958 at the airport in Munich (FRG), while trying to take off, an airplane crashed, in which there were football players of the English team "Manchester United". A total of 23 people on board were killed, including 8 athletes, a coach, a team secretary, one of the directors of Manchester United and eight sports correspondents.

January 5, 1950 during the third landing approach in bad weather conditions in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) a Li-2 plane crashed. Killed 8 hockey players of the USSR Air Force team, as well as a coach, a doctor and a massage therapist.

May 4, 1949 as a result of a plane crash near Turin (Italy), the entire team of the football club "Torino" and all the others on board the plane (including journalists, officials, coach) were killed. A total of 31 people died.

November 18, 1948 in a plane crash over the English Channel, 6 leading hockey players of the Czechoslovak national team (goalkeeper, defenders and forwards) were killed.

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

Some plane crashes have gone down in sports history forever, because famous athletes were on board the crashed planes. Days.Ru remember the most terrible crashes, the victims of which were famous sports teams.

Football club "Torino" in the middle of the last century was a strong competitor to their fellow countrymen from the team "Juventus". At the time of the tragedy, he was in the lead in the Italian championship, four points ahead of the nearest rival. The plane crash happened when Torino players were returning home from Portugal after losing 3-4 to Benfica Lisbon. On board the Fiat G 212CP were 18 crew members, as well as the club's management and several journalists - a total of 31 people.

The plane crashed near the airport in Torino. Due to the strongest fog, the flight crew lost their orientation in space. The aircraft turned sharply, and it quickly collapsed. All passengers and crew members on board were killed. Of the entire team, only Lauro Toma remained alive at that time. He was lucky: due to an earlier injury, he escaped a terrible fate by not flying to the match in Lisbon.

The burned bodies of the victims were taken to the morgue of the Turin hospital. The relatives of the deceased were not involved in the painful identification procedure, so as not to traumatize the sight of the mutilated remains. Former Torino coach Vittorio Pozzo took on this heavy burden.

The plane of British European Airways, on board of which there were football players of the English team “Manchester United”, crashed at Munich airport more than half a century ago. On board were the club's footballers, several coaches, fans and journalists. Of the 44 people, 23 were killed. 19 wounded were taken to a Munich hospital.

The disaster happened when the team flew from Belgrade after the match with the local “Crvena Zvezda” in the Champions League. The airliner refueled in Munich on the way. When he tried to take off, it was prevented by vibrations in the left engine. The pilots made a second attempt to take off, but it was unsuccessful. When the plane took off for the third time, heavy snow began to fall. The aircraft lost speed, smashed through the fence at the end of the runway and slammed into a nearby house with its left wing.

21 people on board died instantly, the rest lost consciousness. After investigating all the circumstances, the pilot was named the culprit of the crash. However, ten years later, it was possible to establish that the real cause of the disaster was snowfall, due to which the aircraft's speed dropped sharply, and it could not take off. As a result, the pilot was acquitted.

18 of the best US figure skaters flew from the J. Kennedy Airport to Brussels - the athletes had to transfer to another flight to Prague. The team was to perform at the World Championship in the capital of Czechoslovakia. But a few hours later, a brand new Boeing 707, in which the athletes and their relatives were flying, crashed in a wooded area near the village of Berg near the capital of Belgium. All 72 people on board, as well as one person on the ground, were killed.

Among the victims of the plane crash were US team coach Maribel Vinson-Owen and her daughters Lawrence and Maribel, both members of the US figure skating team. Immediately after the tragic news, the 1961 World Cup in Prague was canceled, and new champion skaters appeared in the United States only in 1968.

When investigating the causes of the crash, no signs of malfunction were found on board. Because of what, at an altitude of less than 300 meters, Boeing's engines suddenly increased their power and the already released landing gear "pulled in" back, still remains a mystery.

On a hot summer day, Tashkent footballers flew to Minsk to play the USSR championship match with the local club Dynamo. By a tragic accident, over Dneprodzerzhinsk, at an altitude of eight and a half thousand meters, the Tu-134 collided with another airliner of the same type. All 178 people on both planes were killed. Among the victims of the plane crash were 17 football players of the Pakhtakor team.

After the tragedy, the leadership of the USSR decided to leave the club in the country's football Premier League for three years, regardless of the results of its performances at the championships.

The hockey team from Yaroslavl in full force flew from Tunoshna airport to Minsk, where it was to play its first match of the Kontinental Hockey League in the 2011-2012 season with the local Dynamo.

The plane had difficulties with the climb. It crashed into the antenna of a beacon behind the runway and crashed near the airport. There were 45 people on board the airliner. After the disaster, only crew member Alexander Sizov and hockey player Alexander Galimov survived. Doctors fought with all their might for the life of the athlete, but due to terrible injuries incompatible with life, he died a few days later.

After investigating the circumstances of the accident, the IAC came to the conclusion that the immediate cause of the tragedy was involuntary pressing on the brake pedals during the takeoff of the aircraft. However, the commission could not establish exactly who made the fatal mistake.

We will remind, earlier it was reported that in the Colombian province of Antioquia, a British Aerospace Avro RJ85 aircraft belonging to the Bolivian airline LAMIA crashed. The liner, on board of which there were 81 people, followed from Sao Paulo to Medellin.

At the moment, all injured passengers are urgently hospitalized, reports 360 Radio Colombia. As Dni.Ru, the bodies of 25 people were found at the crash site. According to Colombian media reports, from ten to 15 people survived in a passenger plane crash in the province of Antioquia. Among them are the flight attendant Jimena Suarez, a sports masseur, as well as Brazilian football club players Alan Rushel, Marcos Danilo and Jackson Vollmann.