Jul 3, 2002 6 min read

UEBERLINGEN, Germany – A Russian pilot ferrying children to Spain for a beach vacation had less than a minute to get out of the way of an oncoming cargo jet, but the planes rammed into one another after both apparently took the same evasive action at the same moment. The collision claimed 71 lives. Fifty-two Russian children were on the Bashkirian Airlines charter heading for a resort near Barcelona to celebrate the beginning of the summer holiday. Their chartered Tupolev 154 collided at 35,000 feet over southern Germany with a Boeing 757 cargo jet operated by DHL International.

There were no casualties on the ground, although burning wreckage fell onto roads and into yards in the rolling, forested hills around Lake Constance, shared by Germany, Switzerland and Italy.

There was immediate controversy over how the collision happened, with Swiss authorities – whose control system was directing both flights – initially claiming the Russian pilot responded only after three warnings, the first coming two minutes before the crash. It was subsequently learned that only one Swiss controller was on duty at the time of the collision.

After the Swiss offered their initial version of the moments leading up the accident, German aviation and police officials said the Russian pilot had only 50 seconds warning and responded after a second call from air traffic control approximately 25 seconds before the collision.

The Swiss then revised their account.

Anton Maag, chief of the Zurich control tower, said the 50-second warning given the Russian pilot “wasn’t irresponsible but fairly tight.”

A representative of the German airline pilots’ union disagreed.

“Normally we count on five to 10 minutes for two planes heading for a planned crossing of their flight paths to be separated,” Georg Fongern told ZDF television. “Of course we must ask why the two planes were not brought apart earlier.”

The pilot of the DHL jet apparently sent the plane into a dive after the Boeing’s automated crash avoidance warning system alerted him to the danger of the collision about 25 seconds beforehand.

The Russian airline blamed the tragedy on air traffic controllers, and defended its pilot, saying he was an experienced aviator, spoke English – the language of international aviation – well and was a regular on international routes.

Hundreds of rescue officials worked through the night and all day Tuesday examining charred bits of wreckage strewn across a 20-mile wide area. They found 26 bodies by afternoon – some still strapped into seats of the Russian plane. Searchers also found both planes’ flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

Large chunks of wreckage fell among houses in the village of Owingen, just north of Ueberlingen. A police officer on night patrol saw the flash from the collision and the first bodies fall on the road only 50 yards ahead seconds later, police director Hans-Peter Walser said.

“Our house shuddered,” said Margarete Lenz, who said she had been lying awake at the time of the collision. “I heard the thud when it hit. Then came the explosion and the fireball.”

A wing and a six-wheel landing gear of the Russian plane landed in her neighbor’s yard, clipping off the tops of four silver birch trees and coming to a rest against a tree 10 yards from the house.

Throughout the area, bodies were covered with black plastic sheeting where they were found as authorities worked to set up a morgue.

The parents of the children on the plane were high-ranking officials in Bashkortostan, a Russian republic in the southern Ural Mountains. Abas Galyamov of the republic’s Moscow mission said the children were headed to the Costa Dorada near Barcelona and were the best students at the UNESCO-affiliated school in Ufa.

Din Uzhin, a group leader for the students, told The Associated Press he was supposed to have flown with them, but did not get his Spanish visa and stayed in Moscow.

“The parents of the children are calling nonstop asking whether I know anything about the fate of their children,” he said. “And I have to say time and again: ‘Your children were on that plane.'”

German aviation officials said the handover from German to Swiss controllers went normally. It was not unusual for two jets to be at the same altitude when they enter a common airspace, leaving it up to new controllers to order adjustments, said Gregor Thamm of German air traffic control.

Swiss air traffic control took over responsibility for the cargo plane at about 11:23 p.m. and for the Russian plane at about 11:30 p.m.

The accident occurred just after 11:35 p.m. – a time when just one air traffic controller was on duty in Zurich because a colleague was on a break, Swiss investigator Jean Overney said. The controller was being treated for shock Tuesday and had not been questioned.

Overney, head of Switzerland’s flight accident investigation unit, said authorities wanted to know why the controller waited so long to give the dive order.

Although it is normal to issue altitude instructions within tight time schedules at peak traffic time, he said, only five other planes were on Swiss radars at the time of the crash and the controller was not pushed for time.

Sepp Moser, one of Switzerland’s best known aviation experts, criticized the Swiss.

“Without a doubt, the Russian pilots responded late – but they responded late to a late warning, and that is the essence of the problem.

“The signs are that the order to the Tupolev to descend was given later than initially admitted, perhaps too late.”

A European Union official denied this year’s radical overhaul of Europe’s air traffic management, halving the minimum distances between aircraft, was to blame for the tragedy.

“There’s no link here,” said Gilles Gantelet, a spokesman for the EU’s executive commission. “The problem is that the plane wasn’t where it was supposed to be. The only way to change that was in asking the plane to change route.”

In Moscow, Bashkirian Airlines representative Sergei Rybanov said 52 youngsters, five adults and 12 crew were on its plane. All flew to Moscow Saturday from Ufa, but they missed their connecting flight and asked the airline for a special flight to Barcelona. There were two pilots on the DHL plane.

Tearful parents gathered at the airport in Ufa, getting passports and documents to leave for Germany.

“If only they had flown on time, nothing would have happened,” the mother of 11-year-old victim Bulat Biglov said on Russia’s NTV television.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent investigators to the crash scene. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board sent five investigators at Germany’s request.

DHL International said its plane was flying from Bahrain to the company’s hub in Brussels, Belgium.

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EDITOR’S NOTE – Associated Press reporter Clare Nullis contributed to this report from Geneva.