On August 19, 1990, a group of Soviet prisoners, who were transported by plane, disarmed the guards with the help of weapons carried in advance and captured the liner. In the hands of air pirates was more than 40 passengers and crew members. Threatening to blow up the bomb, the prisoners demanded to be taken to Pakistan, where they hoped to avoid prosecution for their crimes. But there they were waiting for a completely different fate.
On board
The Tu-154 aircraft of the Aeroflot airline was to make a regular flight along the Neryungri-Yakutsk route. Distances in Yakutia are huge, there is a road network, but it is easiest to communicate between cities by air transport. From Neryungri (the second largest city in the region) to the capital of Yakutia is more than 800 kilometers. So the easiest way to get there is to get on a plane.
It is for this reason that in Yakutia there was a practice unusual enough for the Soviet era to transport arrested passengers along with ordinary passengers by regular flights. Although formally they were always escorted by escorts, it often happened that there were much more prisoners than guards.
So it was on August 19, 1990. From Neryungri was supposed to go a group of 15 people who were in the city temporary detention center on suspicion of committing grave crimes. There were really dangerous criminals in the group, for example, accused of murder, robbery, racketeering, causing serious bodily harm, recidivists, and petty thieves and car thieves.
Only three escorts were to escort this group. Moreover, for some reason there were not enough handcuffs (there were only three copies), and almost all dangerous passengers rode without handcuffs. Probably, the department decided that they still will not get away from the plane.
In the morning, seven crew members, 36 passengers and 15 criminals arrived on board the Tu-154 aircraft at the airport in Neryungri. The liner safely took off and began to gain altitude. A few minutes after the take-off came an alarm signal from the stewardess in the cabin. A minute later she went into the cockpit of the pilots and handed them a note, from which it followed that the plane had been seized. Terrorists threatened to blow up the aircraft if the aircraft commander did not obey their orders.
It turned out that a few minutes after take-off, one of the leaders of the bandits named Isakov (a former sportsman accused of racketeering) took out a cut-off and instructed him on the woman with the child, threatening to shoot them if the guards did not give the weapon. Another leader of criminals named Evdokimov (who had three previous convictions) took out a sack with wires sticking out of it and said that it was a bomb and, if their demands were not met, the plane would be blown up.
As it turned out later, the criminals did not have any bombs, they gave out a large piece of laundry soap for it. But the bleed was real. One of the criminals bribed an employee of the temporary detention center, who shortly before the transfer sent him a cut-off.
Bandits well thought out the situation. The militiamen, although armed, did not dare start shooting in the cabin of the plane. First, there was too much risk to touch ordinary passengers, secondly, there was a risk of damage to the aircraft, and thirdly, the terrorists threatened to explode the bomb in the event of the start of the shooting. The escorts lay down their arms and joined the other hostages.
Crew of the flight 4076 Neryungri-Yakutsk, 1990.
Meanwhile, Isakov went to the cockpit and demanded that the plane be returned to Neryungri. Bandits wanted to take with them two accomplices from the local prison. On the ground they were already waiting for the capture group. However, the local authorities did not dare to act.
The release of the aircraft was postponed. The liner was refueled. In addition, other requirements of the bandits were met. They were handed over two assault rifles, two pistols, three walkie-talkies and several bullet-proof vests. They also wanted to get parachutes, but then they managed to convince them that they were not necessary. In case of an attempt to jump from a parachute at full speed from such an airliner, they would instantly turn into a bloody stuffing.
In exchange for their two accomplices from the ITT, weapons and walkie-talkies, they released all women and children on board. Another four (according to other sources - six) prisoners refused to participate in this terrorist epic and voluntarily left the plane. Mostly these were people accused of not the most serious crimes. They were threatened with conditional punishment or very short terms of imprisonment, and they preferred not to risk and not participate in air piracy, which automatically increased their term by 15 years.
Flight attendant Natalia Filipenko and flight engineer Alexei Kamoshin.
Pakistan
The last attempt to influence the bandits "in an amicable way" was undertaken when the police brought parents of one of the leaders of the bandits, Isakov, to the airport. However, their attempts to appeal to his son failed.
The plane with the remaining hostages headed to Novosibirsk. But the bandits on the way changed their mind: for fear of a trap, they told the pilot to change course. Now the plane flew to Krasnoyarsk. There the liner was refueled, and then moved to Tashkent.
This was the final Soviet point. Obviously, the invaders were going to fly abroad. But where exactly, they did not even know themselves. Apparently, they had a plan to seize the plane, but there was no longer any plan for further action. In Tashkent, again considered the option of storming the captured aircraft, but it was again decided to abandon it. The hostages together with the crew and bandits spent the night in Tashkent. The crew was allowed to spend the night outside the plane, and passengers and bandits remained inside.
About half past seven on the morning of August 20 the plane left Tashkent. Apparently, it was then that the invaders came up with the strange idea of sending a plane to Pakistan. It's hard to say what motivated them to do it. Soviet security officials tried to convince the criminals to go to India through the pilots of the ship. But they suspected something wrong and demanded a landing in Pakistan. Anyway, the bandits made a very bad choice, because for the hijacking of the aircraft in this country is facing the death penalty.
As soon as the plane entered Pakistan's airspace, two interceptor-fighter aircraft flew to it. The crew managed to convince the interceptors with great difficulty that they were a civilian vessel seized by terrorists.
The bandits demanded to land a plane in Karachi. However, already on approach to the aerodrome, the dispatcher forbade landing. For more than an hour a Soviet airliner circled over the Pakistani airfield until he ran out of fuel. Only after that, the pilots could convince the dispatchers to give them permission and went on boarding.
The crew leaves the plane at Neryungri Airport.
From the air prison to the earthly hell
At the airport, the captured airliner was met by officials. The reception was cordial. Everyone was smiling, shaking hands, hugging. The terrorists were separated from the hostages and very courteously escorted to the airport. Along the way, they even took a group photo of all the invaders. Probably, they even thought that they made the right choice by flying to Pakistan, and now they will live here for their own pleasure.
But as soon as the Pakistanis made sure that all the air terrorists were in their hands and that they did not have any more weapons, they locked them in a local police station. All the prisoners were immediately put on shackles, which they no longer removed until the release.
They were also told that they are accused of hijacking aircraft and of air terrorism, which, under the laws of Pakistan, is punishable by death. That same evening the Soviet airplane with the hostages returned to the USSR. They spent more than 24 hours in the captivity of the bandits.
But for Soviet air pirates everything was just beginning. Initially they were sentenced to death, but later, as foreigners, they decided to regret and replace punishment with life imprisonment. And then they even lowered the deadlines to 20-odd years, which gave a chance to go free.
But before that it was still necessary to live. Unsuccessful terrorists punished themselves as they could not be punished in the USSR. Of course, Soviet prisons were far from ideal, but compared to Pakistani ones, these were practically sanatoriums. At first, criminals even feared that they would be extradited to the USSR. But in a few months they wanted it more than anything else.
Soviet hijackers were placed in several different prisons in the south of the country, where there were the most severe climatic conditions. In some periods, the temperature in the stuffy prison cells increased to 55-60 degrees. There was very little water. The food was bad, and there was no help from the will, unlike the USSR, where the prisoners could receive parcels from their relatives. The shackles were not filmed during the whole term of imprisonment.
The morals in the local prisons were very simple: if the guards did not like something, they simply beat the prisoners with sticks. Since none of the Soviet prisoners of the local language knew and could not even ask for water, attention had to be attracted by shouting and knocking on the doors, which led to a portion of sticks. However, these cruel measures of education forced all prisoners to learn the local language in the shortest possible time - Urdu.
It's no wonder that after a few months of being in Pakistani prisons, two fugitives from Soviet justice brought their lives to an end, and the third died either from a heat stroke or from a heart attack. And the rest began to bombard Soviet authorities with letters. Say, all understood and repented, return home, we want to sit there.
Even before the collapse of the country, the Soviet representatives appealed to Pakistan to extradite criminals to their homeland. But relations between the USSR and Pakistan at that time were far from the best because of the recent Afghan war, so the Pakistani side flatly refused.
In 1992, attempts were made to extradite the new Russian authorities, but also unsuccessfully. And then such political and economic processes in the country went on, that they simply forgot about the Soviet hijackers.
Hijackers arrested by the Pakistani authorities.
Finishing
Return Home
Nevertheless, the Soviet pirates did not have to serve until the end. True, their fate was influenced by a random factor, rather than numerous petitions and appeals. In 1998, Pakistan celebrated the half-century anniversary of its independence. On this occasion, a broad amnesty was declared, under which all foreigners who were in Pakistani prisons fell.
After eight years of imprisonment, the hijackers of the Soviet aircraft were at large. By this point, their ranks have thinned out. Three of them did not live to be released. Another thoroughly undermined health in the severe conditions of local prisons and suffered a heart attack. In addition, the fugitives had nowhere to go, they did not even have the money to return home.
Six of them were lucky, they were taken to Russia. There they were threatened with a new term, but even this was a trifle compared to Pakistani prisons. Two natives of Ukraine remained in Pakistan, as their new motherland did not want to return them or did not find money. Their fate is not known.
As for the Russian bandits, they were taken to the Russian Federation under escort. There they had to be brought to justice again. Originally it was planned that they would be convicted of hijacking an aircraft. For this crime under Russian law, they could receive up to 15 years of imprisonment.
However, later it was decided not to try the criminals twice for the same crime. Russian law enforcers believed that the time spent in Pakistani prisons should serve as a sufficient punishment for them. But their previous crimes, the responsibility for which they wanted to avoid, while stealing the plane, was not canceled. Therefore, all returnees were convicted of old cases and received terms depending on the severity of the crimes.
© Evgeniy Antonyuk
The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
- Albert Einstein