She was 19 years old. A beautiful girl stood in the way of armed bandits who hijacked an Aeroflot plane on October 15, 1970. This was the first time. Until this moment in the USSR there was no...

She was 19 years old. A beautiful girl stood in the way of armed bandits who hijacked an Aeroflot plane on October 15, 1970. This was the first time. Until this moment, there had been no aircraft hijackings in the USSR. Or have we never heard of them?

AN-24 took off from Batumi and began to move towards Sukhumi. An ordinary, unremarkable flight. Such flights were almost bus flights. Thirty minutes and landing. But it turned out that the course did not coincide with the plans of the bandits.

Radars recorded a sharp deviation from course towards Turkey. The plane was silent. Captains at sea were ordered to proceed to the possible crash site of the airliner. It never occurred to anyone that the plane had been hijacked.

A few minutes later, the instruments recorded that the plane had crossed the state border of the USSR. The crew fired a designated emergency landing signal from a flare gun.

The chassis rolled across foreign territory. Half an hour later, the whole world heard the message: the hijacking of a Soviet Union aircraft. A flight attendant was killed and passengers were injured.

...The girl Nadya was getting married. The wedding dress and white shoes are already ready. The wedding is scheduled for three weeks. And the commander is invited with the crew. An hour after takeoff, the commander realized that the wedding would not take place.

IN last hour of her young life, she was friendly and smiling. The spill was poured into Borjomi cups and carried into the cockpit. As always. The crew loved this modest girl.

Perhaps she was thinking about these people who would soon come to her wedding? She loved her job, she loved making people smile. After giving the crew a drink, she heard the flight attendant call.

The passenger handed over a piece of paper and ordered it to be urgently handed over to the crew. Printed on the sheet are requirements to change course and turn off radio communications with the ground. Otherwise the plane will be blown up.


The man who handed over the envelope was in full officer's uniform. They met their gazes, but the wolf's sensitivity is always higher than any other. He saw hostility in the young girl's eyes.

The shadow of danger threw him out of his chair after Nadya. Opening the compartment door, he realized that now this girl would ruin his plans. The shadow of the beast loomed over her. Nadya screamed. She was heard in the cockpit of the plane, and she decided to engage in battle with the enemy.

The young girl could not even imagine what the invader would do. Maniac? Mentally abnormal? He could... She couldn't let him into the cabin. Jumping, the bandit tries to knock her down. Nadya resisted. The bandit was ready for anything.

First shot. Nadya is wounded in the thigh. Nadya pressed her back against the cockpit, and he tried to grab her by the throat. She tries to knock the gun out, but...Second shot. Past. The girl resisted as best she could - she kicked and fought.

The commander quickly realized what was happening behind the door. He began to roll the plane in different directions, hoping to overturn the attacker. But the flight attendant will resist, she’s experienced. People are still wearing their seat belts.

The passenger rushed to help, but the second bandit jumped up and fired a gun into the passage. The passengers realized that there was no point in moving. And the pilot kept throwing the car from side to side.

Another shot at the plane's skin. The altitude was insignificant, and depressurization did not threaten the aircraft. Nadya screamed: “Attack! He's armed!" The invader opened his cloak. There were grenades hanging from his belt.

The plane will be blown up if they don't go abroad. He furiously tore at Nadezhda, who was clinging to the door. Some kind of gimmick doesn't let me into the cabin. The third shot - and the fragile, tender blue-eyed girl falls forever.

No one stands between the bandit and the pilot. Nadya fell. And the massacre began. They shot in the cockpit, although the pilots were needed for the aircraft to continue its journey to a foreign country.


Eighteen holes were in the plane's cabin after landing. Commander Chakhrakiya was wounded in the spine. A terrifying picture behind me. Dead Nadya and a seriously wounded navigator. The wounded flight mechanic Babayan groans.

Only co-pilot Shavidze was lucky. His bullets got stuck in the back of the chair. And the bandit was yelling, as if he was encouraging himself. Among the wild shouting, only the word Türkiye can be heard!

The passengers were ready to die. Criminals too. They kicked the fallen wounded, the chief of them told the commander that everything happens. Perhaps they will die. They can be shot down by Turkish air defenses.

A few minutes later the aircraft crossed the state border of the USSR. The activated SOS signal went off. They weren't shot down. They fired green rockets to clear the runway of Trabzon airfield.

The plane rolled along the wrong runway. It was immediately surrounded by Turkish security forces. The bandits immediately surrendered to the authorities of the Turkish Republic. Urgent assistance was provided to all victims.


In broken Russian they offered political asylum to those who wanted it. There were no takers. The next day, all passengers left Turkey. The body of young Nadya Kurchenkov was also sent to the USSR.

The generation of the seventies remembers the stunning news about the death of a flight attendant who covered the entire male crew of the plane with her body. Her name was given to the school where she studied, and in several cities there are streets with a sign where her last name is written.



Peak of a mountain range, small planet in deep space. There is even a personalized plane. For her courageous deed, the young girl was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Battle.

What happened to the hijackers? They were arrested and tried in Turkey, refusing to extradite them to the USSR authorities. Despite the rather severe punishment, they were granted an amnesty. And they were soon released.

Judging by subsequent events, Brazinskas Pranas and Algirdas - father and son - wanted to leave for America. But America refused the request for political asylum. The USA did not want a quarrel with the USSR.

Then the bandits bought tickets to Canada. The stopover in New York became the reason for their detention by migration authorities. They were unable to obtain political status. But they were given American passports.

Father and son did not achieve success in America. They lived on unemployment benefits and lived in poverty. Algirdas, already a very old father, beat dumbbells. The head of the deceased turned into mush. The jury sentenced him to twenty years in prison.

Nadezhda Kurchrnko Career: Citizens
Birth: Russia, 12/29/1950
At the end of November 1968, Nadezhda Kurchenko went to work at the Sukhumi air squad, and less than two years later, an entry “Remove from the list” appeared in her personal file personnel due to death occurring in the line of duty."

At the end of November 1968, Nadezhda Kurchenko came to work at the Sukhumi air squad, and less than two years later, an entry appeared in her personal file: “To be removed from the list of personnel due to death occurring in the line of duty.” Today we want to talk about the most famous and at the same time the most mysterious case of capture Soviet plane.

THEFT NUMBER ONE

At the end " velvet season" - On October 15, 1970, the An-24 airliner took off from the border city of Batumi on flight N244 to Sukhumi and Krasnodar. It carried 46 passengers, including 17 women and one child. People who had vacationed in the Caucasus did not yet know that in the next 24 hours they were to become witnesses and participants in the drama associated with the first successful hijacking of a Soviet aircraft.

A few minutes after takeoff at an altitude of 800 meters, two passengers - Brazinskasa's father and son - called the flight attendant and passed a note to the pilots demanding to change the route and fly to Turkey. The girl rushed into the cabin and shouted: “Attack!” The criminals rushed after her. “Nobody get up!” shouted the smaller of the hijackers. “Otherwise we’ll blow up the airliner!” At that very moment, shots were fired in the cabin, the only one of which ended the existence of 19-year-old Nadezhda Kurchenko, whose wedding was scheduled within three months...

The first pilot, Georgiy Chakhrakiya, was hit in the spine by a bullet, and his legs were paralyzed. Overcoming the pain, he turned around and saw a terrible picture: Nadya lay motionless in the door of the pilot’s cabin and was bleeding. Navigator Valery Fadeev was shot in the lung, and flight mechanic Oganes Babayan was wounded in the chest. Co-pilot Suliko Shavidze was luckiest of all - a stupid bullet got stuck in an iron pipe in the back of his seat. Behind the pilots stood Brazinskas Sr., shaking a grenade and shouting: “Keep the seashore on the left. Head south. Don’t enter the clouds!”

The pilot tried to fool the terrorists and land the An-24 at a military airfield in Kobuleti. But the hijacker once again warned that he would blow up the car (later it turned out that Brazinskas was bluffing because the grenade was a practice grenade). Soon the captured aircraft crossed the Soviet-Turkish border, and after another 30 minutes it found itself over the airfield in Trabzon. The plane circled the runway and fired green flares, asking to be cleared for an emergency landing. Immediately after landing, the hijackers surrendered to Turkish authorities.

By the way, passengers and crew members were asked to stay in Turkey, but no one agreed to this. The next day, on a specially sent plane, all the people and the body of the dead girl were taken to the USSR. A little later, the Turks returned the hijacked An-24. After a major overhaul, aircraft N46256 with a photograph of Nadya Kurchenko in the cabin flew in Uzbekistan for a long time.

GOD'S COURT

Then, in October 1970, the USSR demanded that Turkey immediately extradite the criminals, but this request was not fulfilled. The Turks decided to try the hijackers themselves and sentenced 45-year-old Pranas Brazinskas to eight years in prison, and his 13-year-old son Algirdas to two. In 1974, a general amnesty occurred in this country and Brazinskas Sr.’s prison sentence was replaced with... house arrest in a luxurious villa in Istanbul. According to one of the former high-ranking KGB officers, within the bowels of this department an operation was being developed and prepared to destroy both air terrorists, which failed due to the removal of the Brazinskas from Turkey by US intelligence services.

The farce of the “flight” of criminals to America was framed as follows: father and son allegedly escaped from house arrest and turned to the American embassy in Turkey with a request to give them political asylum in the United States. Having received a refusal, the Brazinskas once again surrendered to the Turkish police, where they were kept for a couple more weeks and... completely released. Then they calmly flew through Italy and Venezuela to Canada. During a stopover in New York, the Brazinskas got off the plane and were “detained” by the US Migration and Naturalization Service. They were never given the status of political refugees, but first they were given residence permits, and in 1983 they were both given American passports.

Back in 1976, Algirdas officially became Albert-Victor White, and Pranas became Frank White. They settled in the town of Santa Monica in California, where they worked as ordinary painters. In the USA, the Brazinskas wrote a book about their “exploits”, in which they tried to justify the seizure and hijacking of the plane by “the struggle to fight back Lithuania from Soviet occupation.” According to the Los Angeles Times, the Lithuanian community in America was wary of the Brazinskas and were openly afraid of them. An attempt to raise funds for their own aid fund failed - in practice, none of the Lithuanian immigrants gave them a single dollar.

In his old age, Brazinskas Sr. became irritable and bilious, and therefore quarrels often began to arise in the two-room apartment that he shared with his son. During one of these quarrels, the 45-year-old son beat his 77-year-old dad to death with a baseball bat. A Santa Monica jury already found him guilty of this crime in early November of this year, and Albert-Victor White now faces a minimum of 16 years in prison.

KEY QUESTION

The most significant questioning motive, to the fact that 33 years after the tragedy a reliable response has not been received, sounds like this: “How did flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko die and what is the true number of victims of the plane hijacking?” According to information that was soon leaked to the press, 18 holes were counted in the hull of the hijacked plane, and a total of 24 shots were fired on board. The fire was so intense that one of the women who witnessed those events is still convinced that Brazinskas Sr. fired from a machine gun. Meanwhile, it is precisely known that the hijackers had only sawed-off hunting rifles. If we assume that there were no other guns on the plane, it turns out that the Brazinskas had to reload their sawn-off shotguns at least 12 times. It is not clear why the criminals needed to act so full of shots, if the most powerful means of putting pressure on the crew was undoubtedly the danger of exploding a grenade?

Perhaps the version of this event that was recently voiced at a trial in Turkey is not so absurd? It boils down to the fact that there were two armed guards in civilian clothes on board the Soviet plane. According to the Brazinskas, these two were the first to open fire and it was their bullets that killed the flight attendant. No, I do not at all want to justify the hijackers - they actually committed a serious offense, which led to the tragedy. But if we analyze it logically, then why did the Brazinskas need to incapacitate all five crew members, including both pilots (recall that their seat backs were shot through), if the criminals themselves did not have the skills to fly an airplane?

It can be assumed that the An-24 crew really found themselves under heavy fire from those who shot at the hijackers, since at that very moment the Brazinskas were in the doorway of the pilot’s cabin. But in this case, new questions arise: “What kind of “guards” were they, because the architecture for escorting border flights by armed people was created in the USSR only at the beginning of 1971? What was their further fate (all publications say that there were casualties only four, and all of them were members of the An-24 crew), were those guards wounded or killed? And, in the end, why did the hijackers turn out to be more skilled shooters than deliberately trained professionals? Or maybe during the shootout the Brazinskas used Nadya as a “human shield” or did they easily force the guards to put down their weapons by threatening to explode the same grenade?” Unfortunately, we will not find an answer to all these questions until the real circumstances of the An-24 hijacking are made public. Probably, the chronicle of this event officially announced in the USSR did not contain any mention of the guards in order to avoid accusations of low professionalism of employees of Soviet security forces.

ARITHMETICS OF LIFE

Contrary to popular belief, flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko was not the first Aeroflot employee to die during the hijacking of aircraft. The first time this happened was on June 3, 1969, when three terrorists tried to hijack an Il-14 en route from Leningrad to Tallinn, and killed a flight mechanic who fought with them. Well, the last of these tragedies occurred on March 16, 2001. Four Chechens, armed with one hatchet and a knife, hijacked a Russian Tu-154 flying from Istanbul to Moscow and forced the crew to land in Medina ( Saudi Arabia). During the attack on the plane, two terrorists, the only passenger and a flight attendant were killed by bullets fired by Saudi special forces soldiers.

Throughout the history of Soviet and Russian civil aviation 91 attempts and 26 successful thefts were recorded passenger aircraft. During these 117 incidents, 111 passengers and crew members were killed, and another 17 terrorists were shot and killed. This means that for every hijacker killed, on average there are 6-7 innocent victims. Isn’t the price for the strength of the “castles” on our air borders excessively high?...

P.S. I express my deep gratitude to Nadya’s younger sister, Ekaterina Vladimirovna Kurchenko, for her assistance in preparing this material.

Nadezhda Kurchenko

Born on December 29, 1950 in the village of Novo-Poltava, Klyuchevsky district Altai Territory. She graduated from a boarding school in the village of Ponino, Glazov district of the Ukrainian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Since December 1968, she has been a flight attendant of the Sukhumi air squadron. She died on October 15, 1970, while trying to prevent terrorists from hijacking a plane. In 1970 she was buried in the center of Sukhumi. 20 years later, her grave was moved to the Glazov city cemetery. Awarded (posthumously) the Order of the Red Banner. The name of Nadezhda Kurchenko was given to one of the peaks of the Gissar ridge, a tanker of the Russian fleet and a small planet in the constellation Capricorn.

Unfortunately, moreover, in the Encyclopedia of the Udmurt Republic, the information about Nadya contains a lot of errors: the month of her birth and the path of her last flight are given incorrectly - it is indicated in the exact opposite direction. It also states that in November 1968, the young lady became a flight attendant, although in fact, until her 18th birthday, she worked in the accounting department of the air squad. And nothing is said either about the mountain peak or about the tanker named after Nadya. This is what we have, if I may say so, “Encyclopedia”.

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Nadezhda Kolba Nadezhda Kolba

Vice-Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Your comments
Olesya I really liked it, very touching! 20 November 18:49

Awarded (posthumously) the Order of the Red Banner.
Today, October 15, marks 48 years since the death of 19-year-old flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko, who at the cost of her own life tried to prevent the capture of the Soviet passenger plane terrorists.

In modern Russia, the name of Nadezhda Kurchenko is almost forgotten. Probably, official propaganda is trying to make modern girls try to imitate not pure, bright people who can give their lives without hesitation in fulfilling their duty, but the girls from TV shows and “glossy magazines.”

Born on December 29, 1950 in the village of Novo-Poltava, Klyuchevsky district, Altai Territory. She graduated from a boarding school in the village of Ponino, Glazov district of the Ukrainian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Since December 1968, she worked as a flight attendant for the Sukhumi air squadron. She died on October 15, 1970, trying to prevent the hijacking of an AN-24 plane flying on the Batumi-Sukhumi-Krasnodar flight, captured by terrorists by the father and son Brazinskas (45 and 13 years old). At an altitude of 800 meters, two passengers - father and son Brazinskas - called the flight attendant and passed a note to the pilots demanding to change the route and fly to Turkey. The girl rushed into the cabin and shouted: “Attack!” The criminals rushed after her, opening fire. “Don’t let anyone get up!” shouted the youngest of the hijackers. “Otherwise we’ll blow up the plane!”

The shooting continued in the cockpit. Commander Georgy Chakhrakiya was hit in the spine by one of the bullets: Navigator Valery Fadeev was shot in the lung, and flight mechanic Hovhannes Babayan was wounded in the chest. Co-pilot Suliko Shavidze was luckiest of all - the bullet got stuck in a steel pipe in the back of his seat. Behind the pilots stood Brazinskas Sr., shaking a grenade and shouting: “Keep the seashore on the left. Head south. Don’t enter the clouds!”

The pilot tried to deceive the terrorists and land the An-24 at a military airfield in Kobuleti. The pilots still managed to turn on the SOS signal, but it was too close to the Turkish border. But the hijacker once again warned that he would blow up the car (later it turned out that Brazinskas was bluffing, since the grenade was a training grenade). Soon the captured plane crossed the Soviet-Turkish border, and after another half hour it found itself over the airfield in Trabzon. The plane circled the runway and fired green flares, asking it to be cleared for an emergency landing. Immediately after landing, the hijackers surrendered to Turkish authorities. Representatives of Turkish and American intelligence services went to the scene. Passengers and crew members were asked to remain in Turkey, but no one agreed to this. The next day, on a specially sent plane, all the people and the body of the deceased girl were taken to the USSR. A little later, the Turks returned the hijacked An-24. After a major overhaul, aircraft N46256 with a photograph of Nadya Kurchenko in the cabin flew in Uzbekistan for a long time.

According to the recollections of friends and colleagues, Nadya was a pure and bright person; her wedding was scheduled in three months. This drama shook the whole country then. The Soviet Union was shocked - this was the first time such a crime had happened. The name of Nadezhda spread throughout the world in one day. And for many years it became a symbol of Komsomol heroism. This was the first such case in the USSR, there were no instructions on this matter and the 19-year-old Soviet girl acted as her heart and conscience told her.

Suliko Shavidze, Valery Fadeev and flight engineer Oganes Babayan were cured and were then able to fly, working until retirement. Commander Chakhrakiya was chained to prison for two years wheelchair, underwent several operations on the spine, was no longer able to fly, and remained disabled in the second group.

Nadezhda Kurchenko is buried in the center of Sukhumi. 20 years later, her grave was moved to the city cemetery of the city of Glazov. In the village of Ponino, where she studied, a monument was erected to her. The name of Nadezhda Kurchenko was given to one of the peaks of the Gissar ridge, a tanker of the Russian fleet and a small planet in the constellation Capricorn.

Pranas Brazinskas was born in 1924 in the Trakai region of Lithuania. In 1949, according to the biography written by Brazinskaosm, the leader of one of the detachments of the “forest brothers” killed the chairman of the council with a shot through a window and mortally wounded the father of P. Brazinskas, who happened to be nearby. With help local authorities P. Brazinskas bought a house in Vievis and in 1952 became the manager of the household goods warehouse of the Vievis cooperative. In 1955, P. Brazinskas was sentenced to 1 year of correctional labor for theft and speculation in building materials. In January 1965, by decision Supreme Court He was again sentenced to 5 years, but was released early in June. After divorcing his first wife, he left for Central Asia.

Engaging in speculation (in Lithuania he bought car parts, carpets, silk and linen fabrics and sold them in Central Asia, making a profit of 400-500 rubles for each parcel), he quickly accumulated money. In 1968, he brought his thirteen-year-old son Algirdas to Kokand, and two years later he left his second wife.

On October 7-13, 1970, having visited Vilnius for the last time, P. Brazinskas and his son took their luggage - it is unknown where they purchased weapons, accumulated dollars (according to the KGB, more than 6,000 dollars) and flew to Transcaucasia.

The USSR demanded that Turkey immediately hand over the criminals, but this demand was not fulfilled. The Brazinskas asked for political asylum. The Turks refused to extradite the terrorists, they were given ridiculous sentences, and three years later they were given an amnesty. After living for several years in a luxurious villa under house arrest, they went to the USA, where they dreamed of going.
The farce of the “flight” of criminals to America was framed as follows: in 1976, father and son allegedly escaped from house arrest and on June 23 turned to the American Embassy in Turkey with a request to grant them political asylum in the United States. Having received a refusal, the Brazinskas again “surrendered” to the Turkish police, they were kept under guard for a couple of more weeks in an Istanbul hospital and... finally released. On July 11, they received a Venezuelan visa. Then, via Italy and Venezuela, they flew to Canada without any problems. On August 24, during a stopover in New York, the Brazinskas got off the plane and were “detained” by the US Migration and Naturalization Service.

The Brazilians were given American passports with new names. Algirdas officially became Albert-Victor White, and Pranas became Frank White. Real life in the US was very different from what they expected. They settled in the town of Santa Monica in California, where they worked as ordinary painters, lived together in a one-room apartment, and their personal lives did not work out for both of them. In the USA, the Brazinskas wrote a book about their “exploits”, in which they tried to justify the seizure and hijacking of the plane as “the struggle for the liberation of Lithuania from Soviet occupation.” To clear himself, P. Brazinskas stated that he hit the flight attendant by accident, in a “shootout with the crew.” Even later, A. Brazinskas claimed that the flight attendant died during a “shootout with KGB agents”... However, the Lithuanian TV channel LNK, shortly before her death, interviewed Pranas Brazinskas, who directly stated that “he killed this bitch because she stood up to him on a way".

In the Lithuanian community of America, the attitude towards the Brazinskas was wary, they were openly afraid of them. An attempt to organize a fundraiser for our own aid fund failed. After Lithuania gained independence, the “patriots” made no attempts to return to their homeland. However, support for the Brazinskas by Lithuanian organizations gradually faded away and everyone forgot about them. The criminals lived a miserable life; in his old age, Brazinskas Sr. became irritable and unbearable. During one of these quarrels, 45-year-old “Lithuanian patriot” Albert Victor White beat his 77-year-old father to death with dumbbells and was convicted of murdering his father Frank.

An unfamiliar star in the sky
It shines like a monument to Hope...


At the end of November 1968, Nadezhda Kurchenko came to work at the Sukhumi air squad, and less than two years later, an entry appeared in her personal file: “To be removed from the list of personnel due to death occurring in the line of duty.”

Georgy Chakhrakiya, the crew commander of the An-24, No. 46256, who performed a flight on the Batumi-Sukhumi route on October 15, 1970, recalls - I remember everything. I remember it thoroughly.

Such things are not forgotten. That day I said to Nadya: “We agreed that in life you would consider us your brothers. So why aren't you being honest with us? I know that soon I will have to go to a wedding...” the pilot recalls with sadness. - The girl raised Blue eyes, smiled and said: “Yes, probably on November holidays" I was delighted and, shaking the wings of the plane, shouted at the top of my voice: “Guys! We’re going to a wedding for the holidays!”... And within an hour I knew that there would be no wedding...

Batumi airport

At 12.40. Five minutes after takeoff (at an altitude of about 800 meters), a man and a guy sitting in the front seats called the flight attendant and gave her an envelope: “Tell the crew commander!” The envelope contained “Order No. 9” typed on a typewriter:

1. I order you to fly along the specified route.
2. Stop radio communication.
3. For failure to comply with an order - Death.
(Free Europe) P.K.Z.Ts.
General (Krylov)

There was a stamp on the sheet, on which was written in Lithuanian: “... rajono valdybos kooperatyvas” (“cooperative management... of the district”). the man was dressed in the dress uniform of a Soviet officer.

Realizing the “passenger’s” intentions, flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko rushed into the cabin and shouted: “Attack!” The criminals rushed after her. “Nobody get up! - the younger one yelled. “Otherwise we’ll blow up the plane!” Nadya tried to block the bandits’ path to the cabin: “You can’t go there!” . “They are armed!” — were Nadya’s last words. The flight attendant was immediately killed by two shots at point-blank range.

Bullets were flying from the cabin. One went through my hair

- says Leningrader Vladimir Gavrilovich Merenkov. He and his wife were passengers in 1970 ill-fated flight. - I saw: the bandits had pistols, a hunting rifle, the elder had one grenade hanging on his chest. (...) The plane was throwing left and right - the pilots probably hoped that the criminals would not stand on their feet.
The shooting continued in the cockpit. There they would later count 18 holes, and a total of 24 bullets were fired. One of them hit the commander in the spine:
Georgiy Chakhrakiya - My legs have become paralyzed. Through my efforts, I turned around and saw a terrible picture: Nadya lay motionless on the floor in the doorway of our cabin and was bleeding. Nearby lay navigator Fadeev. And behind us stood a man and, shaking a grenade, shouted: “Keep the seashore on the left! Heading south! Don't enter the clouds! Listen, or we’ll blow up the plane!”

The criminal did not stand on ceremony. He tore off the pilots' radio headphones. He trampled on lying bodies. Flight mechanic Hovhannes Babayan was wounded in the chest. The co-pilot Suliko Shavidze was also shot at, but he was lucky - the bullet got stuck in the steel pipe of the seat back. When navigator Valery Fadeev came to his senses (his lungs were shot), the bandit swore and kicked the seriously wounded man.

Vladimir Gavrilovich Merenkov - I told my wife: “We’re flying towards Turkey!” - and I was afraid that when approaching the border we might be shot down. The wife also remarked: “Below us is the sea. You feel good. You can swim, but I can’t!” And I thought: “What a stupid death! I went through the whole war, signed on the Reichstag - and on you!”
The pilots still managed to turn on the SOS signal.
Georgy Chakhrakiya - I told the bandits: “I’m wounded, my legs are paralyzed. I can only control it with my hands. The co-pilot must help me,” and the bandit replied: “Everything happens in war. We might die." The thought even flashed of sending “Annushka” to the rocks - to die ourselves and finish off these bastards. But there are forty-four people in the cabin, including seventeen women and one child.
I told the co-pilot: “If I lose consciousness, fly the ship at the request of the bandits and land it. We must save the plane and passengers! We tried to land on Soviet territory, in Kobuleti, where there was a military airfield. But the hijacker, when he saw where I was driving the car, warned that he would shoot me and blow up the ship. I decided to cross the border. And five minutes later we crossed it at low altitude.
...The airfield in Trabzon was found visually. This was not difficult for the pilots.
Georgiy Chakhrakiya - We made a circle and fired green rockets, signaling to clear the runway. We came in from the mountains and sat down so that if something happened, we would land on the sea. We were immediately surrounded. The co-pilot opened the front doors and the Turks entered. In the cabin the bandits surrendered. All this time, until the locals showed up, we were held at gunpoint...
Coming out of the cabin after the passengers, the senior bandit knocked on the car with his fist: “This plane is now ours!”
The Turks provided medical assistance to all crew members. They immediately offered those who wanted to stay in Turkey, but not one of the 49 Soviet citizens agreed.

The next day, all passengers and the body of Nadya Kurchenko were taken to the Soviet Union. A little later they overtook the hijacked An-24.

An-24B (board USSR-46256) became the first Soviet passenger airliner, stolen abroad. After returning from Turkey, he underwent repairs at the Kiev ARZ 410 and again flew in the Sukhumi air squad with a photograph of Nadya Kurchenko in the cabin. In 1979, the aircraft was transferred to Samarkand where it was operated until its service life was completely exhausted and in 1997 it was written off for scrap metal

Nadezhda’s mother Henrietta Ivanovna Kurchenko says: “I immediately asked that Nadya be buried here in Udmurtia. But I was not allowed. They said that from a political point of view this cannot be done.

And for twenty years I went to Sukhumi every year at the expense of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. In 1989, my grandson and I came for the last time, and then the war began. The Abkhazians fought with the Georgians, and the grave was neglected. We walked to Nadya on foot, there was shooting nearby - all sorts of things happened... And then I impudently wrote a letter addressed to Gorbachev: “If you don’t help transport Nadya, I will go and hang myself at her grave!” A year later, the daughter was reburied in the city cemetery in Glazov. They wanted to bury her separately, on Kalinin Street, and rename the street in honor of Nadya. But I didn't allow it. She died for the people. And I want her to lie with people...

The monument at her grave is temporary, made of poor granite. They carved a face that is washed away by the rain... The authorities promised to install a new one, but then the Komsomol collapsed, and they forgot about all the promises...
- After Nadya’s death, did they help you in any way?
- They gave me a three-room apartment in Glazov. My son and I live with our family. I also have two daughters.
- Do you have any grandchildren?
- Two grandchildren and three granddaughters. They wanted to name their son’s daughter Nadya.

And do you know what he said? “Mom, who knows what she will grow up to be? What if he disgraces Nadya? And the girl was named Anya...

In 1970 you were inundated with letters...
- There were a lot of letters...

Thousands! I read everything, but could not answer. And she sent them to the museum. In Glazov alone we had 15 schools. And in each there was either a detachment or a squad named after Nadya.

In Izhevsk, in Tatarstan, in Ukraine, in Kursk, in the Altai Territory, in her homeland there were folk museums dedicated to Nadya Kurchenko...

You know, I still cry every day. So many years have passed, and I cry. I feel sorry for her - that's all.
- Do you have the feeling that your daughter has been forgotten?
- No! Remember! They remember, thank God! Here in Glazov they remember! At the boarding school where Nadya studied.

Nadezhda Vladimirovna Kurchenko (1950-1970)
Born on December 29, 1950 in the village of Novo-Poltava, Klyuchevsky district, Altai Territory. She graduated from a boarding school in the village of Ponino, Glazov district of the Ukrainian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Since December 1968, she has been a flight attendant of the Sukhumi air squadron. She died on October 15, 1970, while trying to prevent terrorists from hijacking a plane. In 1970 she was buried in the center of Sukhumi. 20 years later, her grave was moved to the Glazov city cemetery. Awarded (posthumously) the Order of the Red Banner. The name of Nadezhda Kurchenko was given to one of the peaks of the Gissar ridge, a tanker of the Russian fleet and a small planet in the constellation Capricorn.

At the end of 1970, Nadezhda was supposed to have a wedding. Vologda poetess Olga Fokina wrote the poem “People have different songs” about Nadezhda and, as it were, on behalf of her young man. In 1971, composer Vladimir Semenov wrote music for these poems and the result was the song “My Clear Star,” which was recorded by VIA Tsvety in 1972 (Stas Namin, Sergei Dyachkov, Yuri Fokin and Alexander Losev - vocals).

Immediately after the hijacking, TASS reports appeared in the USSR:
“On October 15, a civilian plane air fleet“An-24” made a regular flight from the city of Batumi to Sukhumi. Two armed bandits, using weapons against the plane's crew, forced the plane to change its route and land in Turkey in the city of Trabzon. During the fight with the bandits, the flight attendant of the plane was killed, who tried to block the bandits’ path to the pilot’s cabin. Two pilots were injured. The plane's passengers are unharmed. The Soviet government appealed to the Turkish authorities with a request to extradite the criminal killers to bring them to Soviet court, as well as to return the plane and Soviet citizens who were on board the An-24 plane.
The “shuffle” that appeared the next day, October 17, announced that the plane’s crew and passengers had been returned to their homeland. True, the navigator of the plane, who was seriously wounded in the chest, remained in the Trabzon hospital and underwent surgery. The names of the hijackers are not known: “As for the two criminals who committed an armed attack on the crew of the plane, as a result of which flight attendant N.V. Kurchenko was killed, two crew members and one passenger were injured, the Turkish government stated that they were arrested and the prosecutor’s office was given an order to conduct an urgent investigation into the circumstances of the case.”

Roman Andreevich Rudenko Prosecutor General of the USSR

The identities of the air pirates became known to the general public only on November 5 after a press conference by the USSR Prosecutor General Rudenko.

Brazinskas Pranas Stasio born in 1924 and Brazinskas Algirdas born in 1955.
Pranas Brazinskas was born in 1924 in the Trakai region of Lithuania.

Algirdis (far left) and Pranas (far right) Brazinskas

According to the biography written by Brazinskas in 1949, the “forest brothers” shot through the window and killed the chairman of the council and mortally wounded P. Brazinskas’s father, who happened to be nearby. With the help of local authorities, P. Brazinskas purchased a house in Vievis and in 1952 became the manager of the household goods warehouse of the Vievis cooperative. In 1955, P. Brazinskas was sentenced to 1 year of correctional labor for theft and speculation in building materials. In January 1965, by decision of the Supreme Court, he was again sentenced to 5 years, but was released early in June. After divorcing his first wife, he left for Central Asia.

He was engaged in speculation (in Lithuania he bought car parts, carpets, silk and linen fabrics and sent parcels to Central Asia, for each parcel he made a profit of 400-500 rubles), quickly accumulated money. In 1968, he brought his thirteen-year-old son Algirdas to Kokand, and two years later he left his second wife.

On October 7-13, 1970, having visited Vilnius for the last time, P. Brazinskas and his son took their luggage - it is unknown where they purchased weapons, accumulated dollars (according to the KGB, more than 6,000 dollars) and flew to Transcaucasia.

Film “Lies and Hatred” (US espionage against the USSR). 1980 was filmed for viewing at Komsomol and party meetings. The crew members of the AN-24 airliner No. 46256 talk about the capture at 42:20 minutes of the film.

In October 1970, the USSR demanded that Turkey immediately extradite the criminals, but this demand was not fulfilled. The Turks decided to judge the hijackers themselves. The Trabzon Court of First Instance did not recognize the attack as intentional. In his justification, Pranas stated that they hijacked the plane in the face of death, which allegedly threatened him for participating in the “Lithuanian Resistance.” And they sentenced 45-year-old Pranas Brazinskas to eight years in prison, and his 13-year-old son Algirdas to two. In May 1974, the father came under an amnesty law and Brazinskas Sr.’s prison sentence was replaced with house arrest. That same year, father and son allegedly escaped from house arrest and contacted the American Embassy in Turkey with a request to grant them political asylum in the United States. Having received a refusal, the Brazinskas again surrendered into the hands of the Turkish police, where they were kept for another couple of weeks and... finally released. They then flew to Canada via Italy and Venezuela. During a stopover in New York, the Brazinskas got off the plane and were “detained” by the US Migration and Naturalization Service. They were never granted the status of political refugees, but first they were given residence permits, and in 1983 they were both given American passports. Algirdas officially became Albert-Victor White, and Pranas became Frank White.
Henrietta Ivanovna Kurchenko - In seeking the extradition of the Brazinskas, I even went to a meeting with Reagan at the American embassy. They told me that they were looking for my father because he was living in the United States illegally. And the son received American citizenship. And he cannot be punished. Nadya was killed in 1970, and the law on the extradition of bandits, wherever they were, allegedly came out in 1974. And there will be no return...

The Brazinskas settled in the town of Santa Monica in California, where they worked as ordinary painters. In America, the Lithuanian community had a wary attitude towards the Brazinskas, they were openly afraid of them. An attempt to organize a fundraiser for our own aid fund failed. In the USA, the Brazinskas wrote a book about their “exploits”, in which they tried to justify the seizure and hijacking of the plane as “the struggle for the liberation of Lithuania from Soviet occupation.” To clear himself, P. Brazinskas stated that he hit the flight attendant by accident, in a “shootout with the crew.” Even later, A. Brazinskas claimed that the flight attendant died during a “shootout with KGB agents.” However, support for the Brazinskas by Lithuanian organizations gradually faded away, everyone forgot about them. Real life in the US was very different from what they expected. The criminals lived a miserable life; in his old age, Brazinskas Sr. became irritable and unbearable.

In early February 2002, the 911 service in the Californian city of Santa Monica received a call. The caller immediately hung up. Police located the address where the call was coming from and arrived at the 900 block of 21st Street. 46-year-old Albert Victor White opened the door for the police and led the officers to the cold corpse of his 77-year-old father. On whose head forensic experts later counted eight blows from a dumbbell. Murders are rare in Santa Monica—it was the city's first violent death that year.

Jack ALEX. Brazinskas Jr.'s lawyer
“I am Lithuanian myself, and I was hired by his wife Virginia to defend Albert Victor White. There is quite a large Lithuanian diaspora here in California, and don't think that we Lithuanians are in any way supportive of the 1970 plane hijacking
“Pranas was a scary person; sometimes, in fits of rage, he would chase the neighbor kids with a weapon.
— Algirdas is a normal and sensible person. At the time of his capture, he was only 15 years old, and he hardly knew what he was doing. He spent his entire life in the shadow of his father's dubious charisma, and now, through his own fault, he will rot in prison
“It was necessary self-defense.” The father pointed a gun at him, threatening to shoot his son if he left him. But Algirdas knocked the weapon away from him and hit the old man on the head several times.
— The jury considered that, having knocked out the pistol, Algirdas might not have killed the old man, since he was very weak. What also played against Algirdas was the fact that he called the police only a day after the incident - all this time he was next to the corpse.
— Algirdas was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for second-degree murder.
“I know this doesn’t sound like a lawyer, but let me express my condolences to Algirdas. The last time I saw him, he was terribly depressed. The father terrorized his son as best he could, and when the tyrant finally passed away, Algirdas, a man in the prime of his life, would rot in prison for many more years. Apparently this is fate...

Feat is a heroic act,
committed under difficult conditions

Probably everyone remembers the song “ My bright star ", but few people know that this popular song is dedicated to a young girl who was killed by terrorists just 3 months before her wedding... A 19-year-old Aeroflot flight attendant." Nadezhda Kurchenko was killed 45 years ago in unequal fight for the lives of passengers.

On October 15, 1970, taking off from Batumi airport, the AN-24 aircraft (flight 244) with 46 passengers on board was supposed to land in Krasnodar. A few minutes after takeoff at an altitude of 800 meters, two passengers called flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko and passed a note to the pilots demanding that they change the route and fly to Turkey.


The terrorists turned out to be Lithuanians, father and son Brazinskas . Later, the competent authorities will thoroughly study all stages of their lives. It turns out that the eldest Brazinskas - 45-year-old Pranas , an anti-communist, in 1944 he served in the auxiliary troops of the German division, where he assembled pontoon bridges. Later he supplied Lithuanian “resistance” members with weapons. In 1965, Pranas Brazinskas, working as a manager of a household goods warehouse, received five years in a general regime colony for theft of socialist property, but he was released on parole after three years, and in order not to tempt fate, he left with his son Algirdas to Uzbekistan. But even there, Pranas became the organizer of the local black market, and his son also participated in his father’s scams. When the KGB became interested in the Brazinskas in 1970, they decided to flee the country, unable to think of anything better than to hijack the plane.
However, these curious details of the biography of the invaders were not yet known to either the other passengers on board or the crew members.



Flight attendant of the Sukhumi aviation detachment Nadezhda Kurchenko rushed towards the pilots shouting: “Attack!” The terrorists rushed after her. “Don’t let anyone get up!” Algirdas shouted. “Otherwise we’ll blow up the plane!” N. Kurchenko tried to block their path to the cabin, and then Pranas shot her point-blank with a sawn-off shotgun.


Still from the movie "Enrollee"


Later, 18 holes were counted in the aircraft's skin. Several bullets were fired towards the cabin, but none of the passengers were injured. The first pilot, Georgiy Chakhrakia, was hit in the spine by a bullet, and his legs were paralyzed. Overcoming the pain, he turned around and saw a terrible picture: Nadya lay motionless in the door of the pilot’s cabin and was bleeding. Navigator Valery Fadeev was shot in the lung, and flight mechanic Oganes Babayan was wounded in the chest. Co-pilot Suliko Shavidze was luckiest of all: the bullet got stuck in a steel pipe in the back of his seat.



The feat of nineteen-year-old Nadezhda Kurchenko, a graduate of the Poninsky boarding school in the Glazovsky district in Udmurtia, a flight attendant of the Sukhumi aviation detachment, did not go unnoticed. She was posthumously awarded the Military Order of the Red Banner, songs were written in Nadya’s honor, parks and streets of Soviet cities were named after her, minor planet No. 2349, discovered by scientists of the Crimean Observatory, was named after her, the film “Entrant” was made about her, a passenger plane was named after Nadya, asteroid, schools.


This was the first case in the global practice of air terrorism with the murder of a crew member, the hijacking of an aircraft to a neighboring country and the non-return of the criminals, which was facilitated by the obvious double morality of the West



Vologda poetess Olga Fokina wrote a poem entitled “ People have different songs." long before the girl's death. Olga Fokina’s poem caught the eye of the then aspiring composer Vladimir Semenov. He wrote the song “My Clear Little Star” in 1971, which became a hit for centuries. And its first and most popular performer was Stas Namin’s group “Flowers”.



Monument to Nadezhda Kurchenko in Sukhumi

The visibility was clear! The Ana flight was ordinary.
The flight attendant was so bright and sweet,
Because the flight was simple and familiar,
And Nadya didn’t think that trouble would break out!
The plane suddenly deviated unexpectedly from its course,
Communication with the Earth has been interrupted!
Not a single person on earth thought
That Nadya died, but did not surrender to the scoundrels!
...Nadya was summoned by the man in the first chair
And he ordered the commander to deliver the letter.
The flight attendant looked at him cautiously,
And suddenly he realized: “She can get in the way!”
He rushed after her, Nadya said harshly:
“Citizen! You come back, you can’t come here!”
He pulled out a revolver and she screamed,
Opening the cabin door slightly: “Attack, friends!”
A shot rang out. Nadya staggered, but stood up,
Pressing against the doors, shielding friends.
But the bandit, enraged, gave a second one, and you fell.
So Nadezhda died at the hands of the executioners!
And the next morning the whole country knew about Nadya.
And how our plane was hijacked to Turkey!
The crew, the flight attendant saved the passengers!
And she was killed before finishing the flight!
Although I didn’t fly on her plane,
But with soul and heart you have become dear to me.
Blocking the bandits' path to the pilot's cabin,
You gave your life for our Motherland!
And a plane named after her flies,
And with a color photograph of where she died!
And all kinds of people will see Hope,
And the greatness of the feat will always be remembered!
Tatiana Smirnova

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