A Story I Could Never Forget

I’ve always been haunted by a news report I read years ago about a pilot who took his son on a flight, and tragically allowed the son to accidentally crash the plane. I could never remember where I heard the story, or exactly what all the details were, and always worried I was mixing it up whenever I told it to others.

Here’s an overview of the facts that I recently found online. One detail that’s not mentioned, is what affected me the most when I first heard about this story. I remember the news report clearly stating that when they eventually located the flight’s black box the pilot’s last words were “Don’t touch that!”

Date: 23 March 1994
Location: Mezhdurechensk, Russia
Airline: Aeroflot
Aircraft: Airbus A310-300
Registration: F-OGQS
Fatalities: 75

Details: The aircraft crashed after a captain allowed his child to manipulate the controls of the plane. The pilot's 11 year old daughter and 16 year old son were taking turns in the pilot's seat. While the boy was flying, he inadvertently disengaged the autopilot linkage to the ailerons and put the airliner in a bank of 90 degrees which caused the nose to drop sharply. The co-pilot pulled back on the yoke to obtain level flight but the plane stalled. With his seat pulled all the way back, the co-pilot in the right hand seat could not properly control the aircraft. After several stalls and rapid pull-ups the plane went into a spiral descent. In the end the co-pilot initiated a 4.8g pull-up and nearly regained a stable flight path but the aircraft struck the ground in an almost level attitude killing all aboard. The aircraft was named Glinka, after Mikhail Glinka, the father of Russian music.

Source: www.crashdatabase.com (not exactly the most uplifting of websites)