Tragedies in the USSR that were forbidden to write about: a plane crash on a kindergarten and children burned alive at school. Unknown facts about the most tragic plane crash in the history of the country: the crash of a plane on a kindergarten The mass death of children in 1972

After the Curonian Spit in front of Kaliningrad, we had planned a short walk through Svetlogorsk, a former German resort town, which we were strongly advised to visit. Svetlogorsk is located on the coast of the Baltic Sea, 50 km from Kaliningrad. The population of the city is about 11 thousand people. Svetlogorsk received its modern name in 1946, until that time the city was called Rauschen (German: Rauschen). The popularity of the city as a resort has increased significantly since 1900, when a railway was laid from Königsberg to the Rauschen / Ort station (now Svetlogorsk-1), extended in 1906 to the Rauschen / Dune station (Svetlogorsk-2). Trains could now drive closer to the sea, and the resort became much more accessible for many residents of Königsberg.

Svetlogorsk is connected to Kaliningrad by a highway. It is part of the Primorsky Ring, which is under construction. Surprisingly, this 4-lane high-speed highway with continuous traffic with fenders, night lighting and interchanges is not a federal highway. True, only the first 2 stages of Kaliningrad - Zelenogradsk - Khrabrovo Airport and Zelenogradsk - Svetlogorsk - Pionersky have been put into operation so far. After the construction is completed, the ring will close with Kaliningrad through the cities of Baltiysk and Svetly.

1. Primorskoye ring, first stage, image from Google StreetView.

2. Svetlogorsk can be safely attributed to those cities where you can return again. This is a quiet seaside town with interesting architectural development.

3. We go down to the Promenade and the sundial.

4. Sundial (1974) in the form of a mosaic panel with images of the signs of the zodiac.

5. Beach.

6. In 1908, a wooden promenade was built on piles on the seashore.

7. Descent to the beach.

8. Bronze sculpture "Nymph" (1938) by Hermann Brachert on the Promenade.

9. Contemporary sculpture (early 2000s) on the Promenade.

10. Swans in the waters of the Baltic Sea.

11. Anchor.

13. The main symbol of the city is the Hydropathic Tower.

14. The tower of the marine hydropathic clinic, 25 meters high, was built in 1900-1908.

15. In 1978, a sundial was installed on the tower, which organically fit into the appearance of the building.

16. We didn’t have a classic paper or electronic (OsmAnd) map at that time, we navigated among city sights with the help of this photograph.

17. We went to have a bite to eat in the cafe "For friends" on Lenin street. It turned out quite tasty and very budget (740 rubles for three).

The building "Hunting lodge" was built in 1926 according to the original project of arch. Goering in the Art Nouveau style. From 1925 to 1933 the owner of the house was the burgomaster of Rauschen, Karl von Streng. Due to its extraordinary architecture, the building has been repeatedly filmed in films, including in the movie Little Red Riding Hood, from which the name "House of the Astrologer" came from, the role of which was played by the famous artist Yevgeny Evstigneev. In 2003, the house passed into private ownership and was restored by specialists from the Czech Republic and Moscow. The building was raised on jacks, the beams were replaced. Slate tiles for the roof were brought from the Czech Republic. Due to the fact that the stained-glass windows were cemented in the post-war period, and the typesetting parquet was painted with oil paint, they survived, and during the reconstruction of the building they were able to be restored.

18. "Hunting lodge" (1926).

19. Many houses were less fortunate, they have to wait for restoration for a very long time.

20. Commemorative sign to Thomas Mann (2003) commemorating his visit to Rauschen in 1929.

21. Signposts in different styles.

22. Sculptural composition "The Frog Princess" (2006).

23. Train Station Svetlogorsk-2.

24. Pancake room with original wall paintings. On our next visit to Svetlogorsk, we will definitely visit it.

25. Most of the buildings are carefully designed in a single architectural style.

26. Marble sculpture "Carrying Water" (1944) by Hermann Brachert.

27. The building of the sanatorium "Svetlogorsk".

28. An original solution, a sculpture of a German sailor is installed in the niche of an ordinary residential building.

29. A small wooden mill on the territory of the Old Doctor Hotel.

30. Church of Seraphim of Sarov (since 1992), in the past (1907-1946) - Raushen Lutheran Church.

And at the end of the photo story about Svetlogorsk, there is one more memorable place -.

31. Chapel in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" at the site of the death of the kindergarten on May 16, 1972.

The chapel was erected in memory of the victims of the disaster May 16, 1972. On this day on previously located here kindergarten ik plane crashed. At 12:15, six experienced pilots took off from the Khrabrovo airfield on an An-24 military transport aircraft. At 12:29:48, leaving the dense fog over the sea, the plane cuts down the top of a pine tree with its wing and crashes on a kindergarten with a damaged wing. In these moments 22 children and three adults were seated at tables for lunch. The cause of the disaster is the incorrect readings of the altimeter, rearranged on the An-24 from the Il-14. No one has checked how he will behave on the new plane. victims ill-conceived decision became Svetlogorsk children and the crew of "An-24".

32. Commemorative plaque.

By morning, the gaping funnel was turned into a square with flowers by the hands of the soldiers. At that time, official information about such tragedies was not published. Only 22 years later, on the site of a bitter grave, a chapel was built on the site of a bitter grave in memory of those who died so unexpectedly and so terribly on May Day. On May 16, pilots from Khrabrovo arrive at the place of death and lay flowers. There is no other monument to their colleagues. Children come here to Sunday school.

33. ...

For many years, the terrible history of Svetlogorsk could not even be mentioned. When other times came, fundraising began for the chapel. It was erected in 1994. And since then, a candle has always been burning in it. In memory of those who accepted a terrible death here...

Last minutes (based on materials from Wikimapia).

Today, the kindergarten of sanatorium No. 3 (the current "Svetlogorsk") would probably be considered "elite". And then he was called "thieves". Cozy two-story mansion. There are 25 children in total. Soul staff. Many wanted to place their child here.

According to the Kaliningrad Hydrometeorological Bureau, on May 16, cloudy weather with clearings without significant precipitation is expected in the region, fog in places in the morning, variable light to moderate wind, temperature five to ten degrees Celsius. The weathermen were wrong. The weather that day was really bad. Nevertheless, the children still went for a traditional walk with pleasure.

The husband of the teacher Valentina Shabashova-Metelitsa was in the hospital, where he underwent an operation. Valentina was in a hurry to visit her husband in Kaliningrad. And so I finished my walk twenty minutes earlier than usual. Many believe that if the children were still walking, and not sitting in the building, they would have a chance ...

Yulia Vorona and her husband Vladimir on May 16 went to buy a TV. The path lay past the kindergarten. Antonina Romanenko, Yulia's friend, worked there as a cook.

I'll run to Tosa for a minute?

In the locker room, Crow saw two boys placed in a corner.

What are you for, huh?

In response, they only sniffed offendedly.

They indulged, so they were punished, - the teacher explained with mock severity. Everyone who knew her says that she was a very kind person.

Come on, Val! - unpedagogically waved the guest. - Come on, shoot, march to lunch!

One boy rushed to wash his hands, the other - to the toilet. The teacher went out into the street to meet her Andryushka. He was sick, his grandmother took him to warm up. And on the way they decided to visit their mother.

The rest of the kids were already in the dining room.

They sat quietly at the tables, like angels, waiting for the first-second-compote, - Yulia Egorovna wipes her tears.

Leaving Anna Nezvanova in the kitchen to fry cutlets, Tosya and Yulia went out into the game room. Chatting, they stood at the window. They watched Valya hugging his son who ran up on the street.

While waiting for Yulia, her husband decided to pick her lilies of the valley. Moving a hundred meters away, he heard a rumble and a strange crack. Turning around at the sound, he froze: from the side of the sea, breaking the tops of trees, the plane was rushing ...

At the stadium near the kindergarten, the physical education lesson just ended. Stretching out, the class returned to school. Seeing the plane, everyone seemed to be numb.

To me! - having come to his senses, the teacher Yuri Baklanov shouted to the guys who had gone ahead.

Everyone ran back. And then the plane crashed...

Maria Kudreshova then worked in the atelier as a men's cutter. A typical Tuesday, it was time for dinner. Suddenly, the sound of an explosion. The power went out right after that.

And then the terrible news:

The garden exploded!

Maria Grigorievna had a son Alyoshka there. I jumped out into the street, saw a standing motorcycle, began to shout: “Whose motorcycle ?!” The owner came running, rushed off. We arrived, and on the site of the kindergarten - hell. Everything burned, even the asphalt. The cockpit of the plane lay on the road. In it, clutching the steering wheel, sat a dead pilot. The body of another was hanging from a tree. There were no firemen yet. Rushing around, not knowing what to do, the first people who came running to help.

Among them was Vladimir Moiseevich, the husband of Yulia Yegorovna.

Do not believe it, but for some reason I was sure: my Yulia is alive, alive!

Waking up, Crow, littered with debris, could only turn her head. I saw that next to me was the dead Tosya. Yulia Egorovna was saved by the closet. He took the brunt of everything that flew into her head.

The woman tried to get out. In vain. She began to shout: "Help, help!" Meanwhile, the fire was already approaching her. Breathing was getting harder...

And then - the explosion. As it turned out later, the gas cylinders standing in the kitchen exploded. As a result, a hole was formed in the blockage. The crow began to make its way upstairs.

Having got out, she randomly went through the burning ruins. Opposite is a fireman. Seeing Yulia, he threw the hose and ran away.

Scared. No wonder I looked terrible. And yes, that's what happened there. Everyone's nerves will give up.

As a result, a familiar policeman, Pyotr Zanin, pulled her out. Then Yulia was laid on the grass and persuaded not to move. She kept rushing back: “Tosya is on fire there, you need to get her!”

You can't hide the truth

Eduard Trushchenkov 35 years ago was the ideology secretary of the Svetlogorsk city committee of the CPSU. It so happened that in those days he remained in the city "on the farm." The first secretary fell ill with a heart attack, the second one left.

On the morning of May 16, Trushchenkov was in Kaliningrad - at a meeting in the regional committee dedicated to the affairs of the fishing industry. By noon the meeting was over, and the secretary drove back. Suddenly, his car was overtaken by an ambulance. Behind her - another, third.

Come on and you chase them, - Eduard Vasilyevich said to the driver, getting worried.

When they arrived at the scene of the tragedy, the area was already cordoned off. The military and cadets from the police school came to the aid of the firefighters. Some collected the remains of the pilots and the wreckage of the aircraft, others dismantled the ruins of the garden, removing the bodies from under the rubble.

By the way, on the same day, Voice of America reported about the emergency in Svetlogorsk.

On May 17, there was a meeting dedicated to what happened, Trushchenkov continues. - And I asked: how did they learn about our trouble so quickly abroad? Are there agents in Svetlogorsk who work for foreign intelligence? One of the KGB officers reluctantly explained: foreigners intercepted the negotiations, they have a tracking station nearby.

Despite the measures taken by the "authorities", the news of the tragedy quickly spread in our country.

Shortly after the plane crashed, I got a call from my acquaintances from Svetly, - recalls Larisa Novikova, who was then living in Svetlogorsk. - Like, what happened there? And in the evening they called from Kyiv. By that time, I was already a little out of my mind. Around only and talk about what happened. From our house, two people died at once - a girl and a boy ...

The meager information about the tragedy was distorted, overgrown with speculation. Sometimes people only knew that a plane had crashed on a kindergarten. And they fled in a panic to "their" kindergarten, where they took the child in the morning.

Life after death...

The tragic incident was the number one topic in Svetlogorsk for a long time. Then, as usual, history began to be forgotten little by little. And only the relatives of the dead always remember May 16, 1972. Some never recovered from that day at all. Someone drank himself, someone committed suicide ... Time, of course, heals. And yet it is worth talking to them about that tragedy, as tears appear in their eyes. On the morning of May 16, the relatives of the victims will again gather in the chapel on Lenin Street. After the service, everyone will go to the cemetery.

Trip Log:

This plane crash, which occurred in May 1972, was silent for three decades. Then, in broad daylight, a military plane crashed into a departmental kindergarten in the resort of Svetlogorsk. The tragedy, which was immediately classified, overnight claimed the lives of 35 people. And the place where the ill-fated kindergarten stood was razed to the ground in one night and a flower bed was laid there. May 16, 1972 seemed like an ordinary day in the sleepy resort of Svetlogorsk, except that on that day it was more foggy than usual over the Baltic coast. Pupils of the departmental kindergarten of the Svetlogorsk sanatorium returned from a morning walk and were preparing to have lunch.
The kindergarten building was a cozy two-story mansion, in which there were only 25 children. Many residents of the city in those years wanted to arrange their child here, but it was not easy: this children's institution was considered "thieves". The official position of the parents fully justified the status of the kindergarten: the head of the police, the head of the traffic police, the first secretary of the Komsomol city committee, an employee of the Svetlogorsk court, the head physician ...
Photo of the deceased kindergarten group. On the right is the teacher Valentina Shabashova-Metelitsa (died), on the left is the head teacher Galina Klyukhina (she was not at work on the day of the disaster). At about noon, the An-24T military transport aircraft took off from the Kaliningrad Khrabrovo airport to check and adjust the radio equipment. In those years, cases of illegal entry into the territory of the USSR of private aircraft from capitalist countries became more frequent. There were such incidents in the Kaliningrad region, so the local command decided to test the coastal tracking system.
Aircraft An-24T in flight At about 12:30, the An-24T got into thick fog over Svetlogorsk. He was flying at an unacceptably low altitude, and on a steep bank in the resort area, his wing caught the top of one of the pines and shattered to smithereens. After the impact, a massive plane weighing 21 tons flew about 200 meters more and crashed on the building of the Svetlogorsk kindergarten, completely destroying the second floor. The first victims of the tragedy were two high school students Tanya Yezhova and Natasha Tsygankova, who were walking near the kindergarten: even before the collision with the building, the plane doused them with jet fuel vapors. The girls instantly caught fire, but still managed to survive. Fuel poured from the collapsed car, kerosene caught fire, the kindergarten was engulfed in flames, and the aluminum skin of the aircraft burned like paper. Of those who were in the building, only two people survived. The disaster claimed 35 lives: 6 crew members, 2 passengers, 24 children and 3 employees of the kindergarten were killed.
A state of emergency was introduced in the resort Svetlogorsk for 24 hours. Residents were forbidden to leave their homes, electricity and telephones were turned off. When, in a few hours, they completed work on clearing the rubble and searching for the bodies of the dead, the place where the kindergarten used to stand was leveled to the ground, and a small square was built instead. The dead children and teachers were buried in a mass grave in the cemetery, not far from the Svetlogorsk-1 railway station. To reduce publicity to zero, electric trains were canceled on the day of the funeral and traffic was limited on the roads connecting Kaliningrad with Svetlogorsk. But despite this, about 10 thousand people gathered at the cemetery that day. At the funeral, KGB officers forbade taking pictures and exposed the films of those who did it. But a few pictures were still taken by the relatives of the victims.
Photo from the personal archive No criminal case was opened on the fact of the disaster. The case was investigated under the heading "top secret", and its materials were never published. There were many rumors about the reasons for what happened: the residents of Svetlogorsk blamed the pilots for everything, claimed that the examination found alcohol in their blood, and even that the pilots noticed nudists on the beach and descended to get a better look at them. The most plausible seems to be the assumption that the crash was due to a malfunction of the altimeter. On the eve of the flight, an altimeter was installed on the An-24 from the Il-14, but no one tested how the device would work on another aircraft. Only after the disaster, tests were carried out, which showed that the altimeter gave an error of up to 60-70 meters.
Now at the crash site stands a chapel erected in 1994 with a sign: “The temple-monument in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” was built on the site of the tragic death of a kindergarten on May 16, 1972.”

This plane crash, which occurred in May 1972, was silent for three decades. Then, in broad daylight, a military plane crashed into a departmental kindergarten in the resort of Svetlogorsk. The tragedy, which was immediately classified, overnight claimed the lives of 35 people. And the place where the ill-fated kindergarten stood was razed to the ground in one night and a flower bed was laid there.

May 16, 1972 seemed like an ordinary day in the sleepy resort of Svetlogorsk, except that on that day it was more foggy than usual over the Baltic coast. Pupils of the departmental kindergarten of the Svetlogorsk sanatorium returned from a morning walk and were preparing to have lunch.

The kindergarten building was a cozy two-story mansion, in which there were only 25 children. Many residents of the city in those years wanted to arrange their child here, but it was not easy: this children's institution was considered "thieves". The official position of the parents fully justified the status of the kindergarten: the head of the police, the head of the traffic police, the first secretary of the Komsomol city committee, an employee of the Svetlogorsk court, the head physician ...

Photo of the deceased kindergarten group. On the right - the teacher Valentina Shabashova-Metelitsa (died), on the left - the manager Galina Klyukhina (she was not at work on the day of the disaster)

Around noon, an An-24T military transport plane took off from Kaliningrad's Khrabrovo airport to check and adjust radio equipment. In those years, cases of illegal entry into the territory of the USSR of private aircraft from capitalist countries became more frequent. There were such incidents in the Kaliningrad region, so the local command decided to test the coastal tracking system.

An-24T aircraft in flight

At about 12:30, the An-24T got into thick fog over Svetlogorsk. He was flying at an unacceptably low altitude, and on a steep bank in the resort area, his wing caught the top of one of the pines and shattered to smithereens. After the impact, a massive plane weighing 21 tons flew about 200 meters more and crashed on the building of the Svetlogorsk kindergarten, completely destroying the second floor.

The first victims of the tragedy were two high school students Tanya Yezhova and Natasha Tsygankova, who were walking near the kindergarten: even before the collision with the building, the plane doused them with jet fuel vapors. The girls instantly caught fire, but still managed to survive.

Fuel poured from the collapsed car, kerosene caught fire, the kindergarten was engulfed in flames, and the aluminum skin of the aircraft burned like paper. Of those who were in the building, only two people survived. The disaster claimed 35 lives: 6 crew members, 2 passengers, 24 children and 3 employees of the kindergarten were killed.

A state of emergency was introduced in the resort Svetlogorsk for 24 hours. Residents were forbidden to leave their homes, electricity and telephones were turned off. When, in a few hours, they completed work on clearing the rubble and searching for the bodies of the dead, the place where the kindergarten used to stand was leveled to the ground, and a small square was built instead.

The dead children and teachers were buried in a mass grave in the cemetery, not far from the Svetlogorsk-1 railway station. To reduce publicity to zero, electric trains were canceled on the day of the funeral and traffic was limited on the roads connecting Kaliningrad with Svetlogorsk. But despite this, about 10 thousand people gathered at the cemetery that day.

At the funeral, KGB officers forbade taking pictures and exposed the films of those who did it. But a few pictures were still taken by the relatives of the victims.

Photo from personal archive

No criminal case was initiated into the crash. The case was investigated under the heading "top secret", and its materials were never published. There were many rumors about the reasons for what happened: the residents of Svetlogorsk blamed the pilots for everything, claimed that the examination found alcohol in their blood, and even that the pilots noticed nudists on the beach and descended to get a better look at them.

The most plausible seems to be the assumption that the crash was due to a malfunction of the altimeter. On the eve of the flight, an altimeter was installed on the An-24 from the Il-14, but no one tested how the device would work on another aircraft. Only after the disaster, tests were carried out, which showed that the altimeter gave an error of up to 60-70 meters.

Now, at the crash site, there is a chapel erected in 1994 with a sign: “The temple-monument in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” was built on the site of the tragic death of a kindergarten on May 16, 1972.”

No terrible crime, no cannibalism, no drug addiction - no, there was nothing of this in the thoroughly rotten Union, only after perestroika everything "suddenly" appeared: "perestroika unleashed the terrible influx of crime and drug addiction" https://zina-korzina.livejournal.com/1100271.html, yes, there were absolutely no drug addicts: "communism was expected, it was officially considered, What there can be no drug addiction in the USSR due to socialist conditions, the cops looked at such "summer residents" through their fingers - if only they did not break into the houses. Well, the night of hard work gave from one to ten suitcases of raw materials depending on the area. Dostoevsky lived in a Leninist way - in huts. Poppy seeds were also dried there, interrupted, packed in plastic bags, which were rammed into suitcases. How to pick up the right number of suitcases "hats", and home. By the early 1990s, those junkies were already physically dead. But which of the drug addicts heard the stories of centenarians, they still remember Soviet time, like paradise..." http://back-in-ussr.info/2013/09/sovetskaya-narkomaniya/

Original taken from mgsupgs in the Svetlogorsk disaster

On May 16, 1972, at about 12:30, the An-24T aircraft of the 263rd separate transport aviation regiment of the Baltic Fleet of the USSR, flying to fly over radio equipment, crashed in bad weather conditions, catching a tree. After a collision with a tree, the damaged aircraft flew about 200 meters and crashed on the building of a kindergarten in Svetlogorsk. 34 people died in the crash: all 8 on the plane, 23 children and 3 employees of the kindergarten.

Aircraft AN-24T

May 16, 1972 ... Warm spring morning. In the seaside Svetlogorsk - just a paradise. The sun is shining, the air is filled with the aroma of flowering trees. It all happened at 12:30 in broad daylight. The children had just come from a walk and sat down to dinner.

The causes of the disaster were openly discussed only in the early 1990s. According to the official version, the plane crashed due to poor training and flight control. This is not entirely true.

For starters, the reason for aircraft flying at low altitudes.

Just a couple of months before the tragedy, there were two incidents with illegal border crossing on light aircraft. And despite the fact that one of the violators - a Swede - asked for asylum in the USSR, the question arose of how exactly the violators managed to sneak into the airspace unnoticed ... So Rust was far from the first ...

So Gutnik's crew was sent to look for holes in the radar coverage of the border ...
At 11 o'clock they took off, and at 12.30 they had already fallen on the kindergarten. At that time, fog fell on the sea. "An-24" specially flew at an extremely low altitude - 50 meters above the water. They kept in touch with the shore, and from there they were told whether the plane was visible or not. They gave tasks: “Climb 60 meters, descend to 50 meters.” So they circled over the sea for an hour and a half. And, apparently, without calculating, they hooked the shore. The height of the cliff on the seashore in Svetlogorsk is 43 meters. And plus seven meters - pines. As times is obtained 50 meters.

Catastrophe.

The collision of the aircraft with an obstacle occurred at 14 minutes 48 seconds of flight. At the same time, black boxes were recorded: the altimeter showed a height of 150 meters above sea level. In fact, from the foot of the steep coast to the top of the pine tree is no more than 85 meters. In the case there is a scheme for the destruction of the aircraft. “The commander lacked some fractions of a second,” says Vasily Vladimirovich Proskurnin bitterly. - Coming out of the fog, he understood everything and pulled the rudders towards himself. Alas, the An-24 is not a fighter." In the diagram, up to centimeters, a plane crash is recorded after a collision with a pine tree on the seashore. And it seems almost mystical after a horizontal fall of a corkscrew on a kindergarten ...

The promulgated version of the disaster: unsatisfactory organization of preparation and control of this flight. No criminal case was initiated on the fact of the tragedy in Svetlogorsk. The result of the investigation was the order of the Minister of Defense with two zeros, according to which about 40 military officials were removed from their posts. Why did the altimeter lie? It turns out that on the eve of this flight, the Navy Air Force made, as is now clear, an ill-considered decision to replace the altimeters from the IL-14 to the AN-24. No one has checked how they will behave on the new plane. The first victims of this ill-conceived decision were the Svetlogorsk children and Gutnik's crew. Subsequent experiments showed that the altimeter, rearranged from the Il-14 to the An-24, gave an error of up to 60-70 meters.

In addition, the deceased crew, according to eyewitnesses, "was after yesterday", no, not drunk, but slightly hungover. This also contributed ... But this fact was hushed up, because otherwise the relatives and friends of the crew would not have received any compensation ..

Victims.

After the tragedy, something terrible was happening in Svetlogorsk. The burning kindergarten was cordoned off. Even the parents of the dead children were not allowed to see him. The streets were patrolled by armed soldiers.

Photograph of a group of kindergarten students with teachers, taken in early 1972.
From the archive of Maria Kudreshova

Residents were forbidden to leave their own homes, where electricity and telephones were cut off.

All night long work was going on at the crash site. The parents of the children, who came here on the morning of May 17, were shocked: there was no trace of the smoking ruins. The garden was razed to the ground, and in its place a large flower bed was laid out.

Officially, nothing was reported about the events in Svetlogorsk. On the day of the funeral, the movement of electric trains to Svetlogorsk was canceled, and cordons were put up on the roads.

But the inhabitants of the Kaliningrad region still learned about the plane crash and the death of children. During the funeral, about 10 thousand people gathered at the cemetery. Taking pictures was not allowed. From those who violated the ban, people in civilian clothes took away the footage.

Investigation

The investigation into the causes of the accident was carried out by a commission from Moscow under the leadership of the Deputy Minister of Defense for Armaments, Colonel-General N.N. Alekseev. However, no criminal case was initiated.
The relatives of the victims were not told anything about the course of the proceedings and about the perpetrators.

The relatives of the children burned alive did not receive any compensation from the authorities.
They were only helped to organize the funeral.
The result of an internal investigation of the Ministry of Defense was a top secret order by Defense Minister Andrei Grechko, according to which about 40 servicemen were removed from their posts.

On May 16, 1972, at about 12:30, the An-24T aircraft of the naval forces of the Baltic Fleet of the USSR, flying to fly over radio equipment, crashed in bad weather conditions, catching a tree. After a collision with a tree, the damaged aircraft flew about 200 meters and crashed on the building of a kindergarten in Svetlogorsk. 34 people died in the crash: all 8 on the plane, 23 children and 3 employees of the kindergarten.

The kindergarten of the resort town of Svetlogorsk was filled with cheerful children. ringing voices. Dinner time came, the kids returned from a walk. And suddenly - a giant shadow covered the sky, a monstrous blow was heard, a flame shot up. In the opening of the collapsed wall, engulfed in flames, two kindergarten workers jumped out. The tenth-graders of the local school walking along the street were covered with heat ... It happened at 12.30 on May 16, 1972.

Eyewitnesses of the tragedy will tell: in the morning it was clear and warm, but then a thick fog fell over the sea. From there, from the direction of the sea, from the fog came the rumble of turbines. Then a plane appeared over the steep bank, hooked on a tall pine tree, cut down the top, broke off half of the wing and, with a decrease, losing parts of the skin, flew another two hundred meters and collapsed on the kindergarten building. Twenty meters from the crash site, a lonely old woman lived in a house. This house is still intact...
The regional party authorities, the command of the Baltic Fleet urgently arrived at the scene of the tragedy, examined, photographed, and took away the remains of the dead. During the night, sailors from a nearby unit removed the wreckage of the aircraft, dismantled the ruins, cleared the territory and even laid out a flower bed on the site of the former kindergarten. A severe veto was imposed on information about the tragedy. Naturally, rumors and speculation immediately began to circulate around Svetlogorsk. A small resort town was shocked by the tragedy that claimed twenty-three children's lives. Under the ruins, the kindergarten cook Tamara Yankovskaya also died, and two more workers, Antonina Romanenko and Valentina Shabaeva-Metelitsa, died of burns in a military hospital.

Military pilots, crew members of the crashed plane - captains Vilorii Gutnik and Alexander Kostin, senior lieutenant Andrei Lyutov, warrant officers Nikolai Gavrilyuk, Leonid Sergienko, senior inspector pilot lieutenant colonel Lev Denisov, senior engineer lieutenant colonel Anatoly Svetlov were buried at the city cemetery in Kaliningrad. The body of the right pilot, senior lieutenant Viktor Baranov, was taken to his homeland by his wife.

A commission to investigate the causes of the disaster, headed by the Deputy Minister of Defense for Armaments, Colonel-General - Engineer Alekseev, urgently flew out of Moscow. He was accompanied by many high military officials. The found "black boxes" were sent for decryption, suggesting that the disaster occurred due to the failure of some device. In the air regiment, the commission passed through the "sieve" a detailed survey of all aviators. When the "black box" data was received a few days later, it became clear that the technique had nothing to do with it. Having worked through all the versions, the commission finally came to a single conclusion. But this conclusion was not brought to the general public, and the inhabitants of Svetlogorsk for many years blamed the pilots for what happened.

Until now, on the anniversary of the tragedy, representatives of the aviation of the Baltic Fleet come to the Svetlogorsk cemetery to honor the memory of the dead, meet with relatives of the victims of the tragedy, who now know the true cause of the disaster. Every year on the ninth of May, on the birthday of the commander of the AN-24, Captain Vilorii Gutnik, fellow soldiers of the deceased crew gather at the city cemetery of Kaliningrad. A chapel was erected on the site of the tragedy.

But in the local press, no, no, and there are articles where the authors question the professionalism of the crew. Say, he did not cope with his task due to unfavorable flight conditions: a high incoming coast, sudden fog, ignorance of the weather on the route. The supposedly "drunk" factor also worked: a belated reaction of the crew members ( possible impact alcohol). One of the authors even spread ridiculous rumors about the desire of the crew to take a closer look at the nudist girls sunbathing on the beach (and this was in 1972, but at a temperature of plus 6 degrees!). They wrote that the crew allegedly took off without permission ....
What really happened on May 16, 1972? Versions and eyewitness accounts had to listen to a lot. But I will be based only on official documents. As for the professionalism of the crew, the act of investigating the crash of the AN-24 plane does not call it into question: by that time, Captain Gutnik's flight time had amounted to about five thousand hours. Yes, and colleagues speak of him as a high-class pilot.

Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Vyacheslav Kuryanovich:

After graduating from the flight school, Vilor Ilyich Gutnik underwent retraining at the Ryazan Training Center. Then he trained in civil aviation. He flew as a co-pilot in the Yakut squadron. Gained experience flying long and extra long distances there. In 1965 he became an airship commander in our unit. I flew with him for a year and a half as a navigator. Gutnik was considered one of the best pilots in our regiment...

Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Pisarenko:

Vilor Ilyich was a pilot of the highest class. Literate,. disciplined, very scrupulous in everything. And the whole crew was his strongest. The same navigator, Captain Kostin. He was older than the commander. A very competent navigator. He came to us from Novaya Zemlya, where he flew in the most difficult conditions.
As for the "beer factor", the materials of the investigation of the catastrophe contain the conclusion of a pathologist, which completely denies such an assumption.

I carefully studied (many thanks for the help to the former commander of the BF Air Force, Lieutenant General of Aviation Vasily Proskurin) all the documents, photographs, drawings, eyewitness accounts, radio records, etc. It turns out that on March 13, 1972, the commander of the Air Force of the Baltic Fleet, Colonel General Aviation S. Gulyaev approved the flight plan. According to it, the flight on May 16 was supposed to take place along the route Khrabrovo-Zelenogradsk - Cape Taran - Spit (landing) - Chkalovsk (landing) - Khrabrovo (landing).
From the report of dispatcher Ensign Mikulevich: "Upon the arrival of Captain Gutnik at the KDP, I took a certificate from him that the crew could perform the task for health reasons. And I signed the flight sheet with a landing on the Spit."

An-24 took off from Khrabrovo at 12:15. General leadership the flight was carried out by the operational duty officer of the aviation command post, Lieutenant Colonel Vaulev, who also gave permission to complete the task. Having gained altitude, the plane reached a point in the Zelenogradsk region, "attached" to it and went to Cape Taran. Then he made a U-turn over the sea to reach the given bearing. A thick fog was already over the sea.

The collision of the aircraft with an obstacle occurred at 14 minutes 48 seconds of flight. At the same time, black boxes were recorded: the altimeter showed a height of 150 meters above sea level. In fact, from the foot of the steep coast to the top of the pine tree is no more than 85 meters. In the case there is a scheme for the destruction of the aircraft. “The commander lacked some fractions of a second,” Vasily Vladimirovich Proskurnin says bitterly. “Coming out of the fog, he understood everything and pulled the rudders towards himself. Alas, the An-24 is not a fighter.” In the diagram, up to centimeters, a plane crash is recorded after a collision with a pine tree on the seashore. And it seems almost mystical after a horizontal fall of a corkscrew on a kindergarten ...

Why did the altimeter lie? It turns out that on the eve of this flight, the Navy Air Force made, as is now clear, an ill-considered decision to replace the altimeters from the IL-14 to the AN-24. No one has checked how they will behave on the new aircraft. The first victims of this ill-conceived decision were the Svetlogorsk children and Gutnik's crew. Subsequent experiments showed that the altimeter, rearranged from the Il-14 to the An-24, gave an error of up to 60-70 meters.

The promulgated version of the disaster: unsatisfactory organization of preparation and control of this flight. No criminal case was initiated on the fact of the tragedy in Svetlogorsk. The result of the investigation was the order of the Minister of Defense with two zeros, according to which about 40 military officials were removed from their posts.

In 1972, it was not customary to widely cover the details of accidents and disasters, especially those that happened in the military department. And the circumstances of the tragedy that occurred in a small resort town on the Baltic Sea were covered with a veil of silence. Albeit with a great delay, but finally the public accusation was lifted from the crew, which itself became a victim of erroneous cabinet decisions.