On March 23, 1994, Aeroflot Flight 593, en route from Moscow to Hong Kong, crashed into the Kuznetsk Alatau mountain range in southern Russia, killing everyone on board.
The tragedy began when a father tried to create a fun memory with his kids by letting them pretend to fly the plane. Instead, 75 lives were lost.
The plane had a highly experienced crew: Captain Andrew Viktorovich Danilov, First Officer Igor Vasilyevich Piskaryov, and Relief Captain Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky.
It was the first international flight for Relief Captain Kudrinsky’s children, 13-year-old Yana and 15-year-old Eldar. Because it was a special flight, he let them into the cockpit and, against airline regulations, allowed them to sit at the controls.
The plane was on autopilot, and by 12:43 a.m., Yana sat down in her father’s seat, pretending to “fly” the plane. Moments later, disaster struck.
”Daddy, can I turn this?” Yana asked as she sat at the controls, according to VT.
Aeroflot Flight 593
A few minutes later, Eldar took over. His father thought he was playing around: ”Turn it! Watch the ground as you turn. Let’s go left. Turn left! Is the plane turning?”
After more than 30 seconds of Eldar’s inputs to the control stick, the aircraft shifted out of autopilot and into manual control.
A small warning light flashed, but the crew missed it. Soon after, Eldar noticed something was wrong when the plane began to bank to the right.
As the plane started losing altitude, a desperate struggle to regain control began.
The plane tilted into a 45-degree bank, forcing everyone into their seats with intense G-forces. As the crew and passengers struggled to move, Eldar could not get out of his seat, and his father shouted orders at him while trying to regain control with one hand.
Kudrinsky’s last words to his son
Unfortunately, attempts to stabilize the plane failed, and Kudrinsky’s last words were a panicked plea to his son: “Eldar, get away. Go to the back, go to the back Eldar! You see the danger don’t you? Go away, go away Eldar! Go away, go away. I tell you to go away!”
The plane eventually spiraled uncontrollably, stalled, and plummeted to the ground at more than 160 mph.
At first, Aeroflot denied any wrongdoing and refuted claims that children had been in the cockpit during the accident. Then, on September 28, 1994, the Moscow-based magazine Obozrevatel published a transcript of the cockpit voice recording that confirmed the children had been allowed to handle the controls.
The transcript documented the sequence of events inside the cockpit. It provided evidence of the crew’s actions immediately before the crash, including their decision to let the children interfere with the aircraft’s controls.
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