Hijacking Let L-200 to Turkey

Two cousins ​​were hijackers: 21-year-old 3rd year student of the Crimean Medical Institute Nikolay F. Gilev and 20-year-old student of the Kerch branch of the Sevastopol Instrument-Making Institute Vitaly Pozdeev (in separate sources - 20 and 25 years old, respectively ^[2] , in Samizdat publications citing Soviet sources reported that the hijackers were “cadets of the flight school” ^[3] ). They both lived by Soviet standards by no means poor: they had a radio, tape recorder and even a motorcycle. However, the guys were disappointed with the Soviet system, while life in the West, like many in the country, seemed festive to them. As a result, the cousins ​​decided to escape from the Soviet Union ^[1] .

However, it was not at all easy to get past the Iron Curtain , since no one allowed students to leave the country on a tourist permit. There were attempts to escape on a ship, for which Gilev several times tried to get into the oceanographic expeditions, but to no avail. In the fall of 1969, Pozdeev made his way to the Armenia cruise ship, but during the voyage he began to have seasickness , which forced him to leave in Odessa . Later, Vitaliy and Nikolai entered the Ukraine liner, hiding in a box for boats, but one of the sailors foiled plans, having found their shelter. Disappointed in attempts to escape by water, the brothers pay attention to aviation, although at that time there had not been a single successful hijacking of a Soviet airliner outside the country ^[1] .

In those years, a large number of flights were made between the Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory through the Kerch Strait , and their small planes were designed for just a few passengers, and the ticket cost was in the range of 4-6 rubles, that is, quite affordable ^[1] . Initially, these were Ae-45S and Ae-145 Czechoslovak company Aero , but they were distinguished by a weak chassis, so in the early 1960s, the L-200 Morava aircraft of another Czechoslovak company, Let Kunovice , replaced ^[4] . This light twin-engine aircraft was quite easy to fly, and if they purchased one or two additional tickets, the hijackers would be one on one with the pilot, while having a numerical advantage. It only remained to learn how to control the aircraft and understand navigational instruments, for which in the spring of 1970 Nikolai Gilev enrolled in DOSAAF pilot courses in Sevastopol, thereby gaining self-driving skills by fall ^[5] . They also flew several times along the Kerch – Krasnodar route to study the situation and work out the details ^[4] .

On October 15, 1970, foreign media spread sensational news - the 45-year-old Lithuanian Pranas Brazinskas, together with his son Algirdas, accomplished what no one had succeeded before - the first successful hijacking of a Soviet airliner due to the Iron Curtain, while during the capture the crew was injured, the stewardess Nadezhda Kurchenko died. After this news, Gilev and Pozdeev understand that security will be improved on Soviet airlines, including airport checks, but this will be implemented with some delay, and therefore the escape plan must be implemented as soon as possible ^[5] .

Students choose the date of theft on October 27th. On this date, they purchase two tickets under their own names, as well as an additional one ticket for a non-existent passenger with a child. But when at the Kerch airport only two people checked in with these tickets, another person bought a ticket for the same flight, hurrying to Krasnodar - the 20-year-old Ural builder Yuri Derbenev (according to other sources - Alexander Derbenev or Dergilev). The plane performing this flight on that day was the L-200A Morava with tail number USSR-34401 from the 1st Krasnodar Combined Aviation Squad of the North Caucasian Civil Aviation Administration, and the pilot was 49-year-old Alexei Minchenko. The invaders had with them a knife, ropes and a canvas postal bag with a metal frame on their necks, but the third passenger was not at all in their plans, so they had to improvise ^{[1] [4]} .

On the plane, Gilev and Pozdeev sat on the back row, while Derbenev was in the front row next to the pilot. In the afternoon, “Morava” flew out of the airport and gained height above the bay when the hijackers threatened the pilot with a fake weapon (with a toy gun ^[3] or a wooden fake grenade ^[5] ), pounced on Derbenev and Minchenko, twisting the ropes of the first, and they threw a bag over the head of the second one and, pulling the cord around the neck, dragged it from the chair. The plane began to quickly lose altitude, but Gilev, who took a place at the helm, managed to level it and direct it south towards Turkey. At the same time, in Krasnodar, at first they did not know what had happened, since no one had met the passengers; when the pilot’s colleagues were worried that he was significantly delayed in arriving, board 34401 had already crossed the USSR border, following over neutral waters ^{[1] [4]} .

After three hours of flight, the shore appeared ahead. But by then dusk had already begun, while Nikolay Gilev had no night flight experience, so the pilot was released, after which, explaining that there was almost no fuel left on board, they ordered the plane to land in Turkey. Soon, a runway was spotted, on which the Morava landed, and due to a lack of fuel the right engine stopped. After the L-200A stopped, a car with the military soon drove up to him. Gilev and Pozdeev came to meet her, but Minchenko and Derbenev did not leave the plane, saying that they refused to negotiate without Soviet representatives, and the plane was the territory of the USSR ^[4] . From conversations with the military, the invaders learned that they landed at the American air base near Sinop , the same one where the Sukhumi An-24 captured by the Brasinsky 12 days earlier landed ^[5] (according to most sources, the An-24 actually landed in Trabzon ^[6] ).

At first, the media mistakenly believed that the pilot was the initiator of the escape, which not only complicated the further investigation ^[4] , but also became a moral shock for real hijackers who were sure that they would be met as heroes. In addition, the Turkish authorities believed that Gilev and Pozdeev were in fact agents of the Soviet special services whose purpose was the killing of both the Brazinskases as an act of retaliation (the KGB did plan such an operation, but ultimately refused). When, after two months of interrogation, it was found that the brothers were indeed defectors, they were placed in a refugee camp in the Levant ( Istanbul district) ^[5] .

Return of the plane

For the return of the aircraft, an Il-14P aircraft was assigned onboard the USSR-41867 from the Volgograd United Squadron , the crew of which included the commander (FAC) G.I. Kontseva , co-pilot N. Sazykin , navigator B.P. Zagrebenny , and the airborne engineer N. Ya. Ekimtsov and flight engineer A. A. Belyanin . From Volgograd, the Il-14 headed to Rostov-on-Don , where A.A. Vostrikov , who knew English, boarded the plane, and then landed in Krasnodar, where the pilot Valentin F. Mozgovoy and the head of the Quality Control Department of the Krasnodar Aviation Engineering boarded the plane base Nikolay V. Berdnikov ; Brain had to overtake board 34401, and Berdnikov - to check the technical condition of the aircraft before flying. Also in IL-14, they additionally loaded a barrel of aviation fuel and oil ^[4] .

Board 41867 was ready for departure to Turkey on November 8, but due to various delays, including briefings and vaccinations against illnesses, it was only able to fly out of Simferopol Airport on November 13. Near Turkish territorial waters, a Soviet airliner was met by a Turkish air force fighter, which led him to the Sinop airfield. However, when the military aircraft began to show the approach scheme, the Soviet crew realized that in this case they would land with a fair wind, which threatens to roll out of the strip and destroy the aircraft, so the landing approach was interrupted, after which the IL-14 landed from the opposite sides with headwind; similarly made landing and the Turkish fighter ^[4] .

In Sinop, an engineer examined the 34401 board and did not find any visual flaws, except that he found a package of film in the cabin - probably the plane was photographed. Pilot Minchenko and passenger Derbenev from a hijacked plane were now passengers on the IL-14, and the pilot of the L-200 was Mozgovoy, who was flying with Berdnikov. After refueling, the IL took off, and Morava took off after it. The planes normally proceeded over the sea and entered Soviet airspace when, after establishing contact with the Simferopol Air Traffic Control Center, they were instructed to occupy a higher echelon . Airliners began to climb, when suddenly both engines M-337 Czechoslovak aircraft began to work intermittently. Realizing that a further rise threatens to stop the engines, while the flight passed over the Black Sea , the pilots, after discussion with the dispatcher, received permission to follow at a low altitude, after which the operation of the engines returned to normal. After landing in Simferopol, a more thorough inspection of the side 34401 was carried out, according to the results of which it turned out that someone had specially spoiled the aneroid mechanism to saturate the fuel mixture, as a result of which the spring travel was halved. When flying at a low altitude, oxygen enters the engines enough for their normal operation, but at a higher altitude the amount of oxygen decreases, which leads to the need for additional enrichment of the mixture, which is the task of the aneroid mechanism. However, under conditions of travel restrictions at high altitudes, the enrichment of the mixture was already insufficient for the normal functioning of the engines, which led to malfunctions in their work ^[4] .

As for the pilot Alexei Minchenko, he was questioned for several months first in Simferopol, then in Moscow, and then in Krasnodar, before the board of the Ministry of Civil Aviation , headed by Minister B. P. Bugaev, came to the conclusion that the pilot’s actions in this situation were correct, after which Minchenko was again allowed to fly ^[4] .

Return of the Hijackers

Nikolay Gilev and Vitaliy Pozdeev were not extradited to the USSR, they were granted political asylum , the Turkish authorities took a tough stance on this issue, ignoring the threats and demands of the Soviet side, but it was not easier for the hijackers. They submitted a request to the US embassy for a visa to the United States, but this issue was delayed, and conversations with military experts showed that the defectors knew almost nothing about Soviet military facilities. The foreign media limited themselves to only small reports about the escape, not being interviewed, and the Soviet media did not mention it at all, since, against the background of the Lithuanians' earlier escape, publications about a new successful hijacking could resonate in society. In fact, Crimean students were no longer needed by anyone outside their homeland, and instead of a beautiful life, they got places in barracks next to other refugees ^{[1] [5]} .

Six months after the escape, letters began to arrive from relatives in which the latter asked the defectors to return to their homeland, convincing that they would be forgiven. Also, Soviet journalist Valentin Zorin talked with former students, who assured that they would be reinstated in institutes and even given in a separate apartment. Tired of living in barracks, cousins ​​Vitaly and Nikolai eventually decide to return to the Soviet Union, although Turkish authorities warned them of the most likely consequences of such a move. Also, according to some reports, they even sent a response from the American embassy for a visa within two weeks, but Gilev and Pozdeev were already adamant. On December 20, 1971 ^[7] they, along with Soviet and Turkish representatives, cross the Soviet-Turkish border near the village of Sarpi ( Adzharian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic ), and the next morning they board a plane to Batumi , arriving in Moscow . They were arrested right at the airport on charges of treason , after which they were taken to Lefortovo detention center ^[5] .

In September 1972 ^[7] , an open trial of hijackers ^{[1] was} held in Kerch, while the pilot of the hijacked aircraft, Alexey Minchenko, acted as a witness on it ^[4] . Gilev repented of the investigation and the trial, while Pozdeev stated that he was still an adversary of the Soviet system and regretted returning. As a result, the College of Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR, considering the voluntary return of the hijackers a mitigating circumstance ^[7] , passed a sentence to Nikolai Gilev and Vitaliy Pozdeev, according to which they received 10 and 12 years in prison, respectively ^[5] .

Gilev was serving his term in Mordovia, while collaborating with the administration, for which he was eventually released ahead of schedule in 1978. After returning to Kerch, he married, started a family and worked as an electrician in a railway depot until retirement, where he received the nickname “Turkish Pilot”. Pozdeev was serving a term in the Perm Region, having served all 12 years, after which he moved to Sverdlovsk in 1984, where at that time relatives who had left Kerch had already lived. There is no information about his future life ^[5] .

Implications for the L-200 fleet

Let L-200 aircraft were not used for long in the Krasnodar Territory, since the winter of 1970-1971 was severe, which caused problems in the operation of the M-337 engines in , so the planes were transferred to the Volgograd squadron, but there were problems too. In general, these engines were not reliable enough in the conditions of the USSR. In addition, hijacking 34401 showed the whole danger of operating light aircraft on passenger routes in the Soviet Union and the very idea of ​​an air taxi , since the pilot turned out to be alone against passengers, which could be used by potential hijackers. As a result, in the 1970s, the operation of light-engine aircraft, such as Let L-200 and Yak-12 , on Soviet airlines was discontinued ^[4] .

Implications for Civil Aviation

In order to continue to rely on acts of international law when claiming the return of aircraft hijackers from foreign countries, on December 2, 1970, representatives of the civil aviation authorities and diplomats of the USSR and the USA in The Hague agreed that the hijacking of a civil aircraft is now equated to a common crime, and not an act of political protest , and therefore hijackers, like ordinary criminals, cannot apply for political asylum. In addition to the American and Soviet parties, this agreement was signed by government delegates from 77 ICAO member countries ^[8] .