Fighter crash kills dozens at air show in Ukraine
MOSCOW — An aerobatics stunt went wrong in Ukraine yesterday as a fighter jet plunged to the ground, sliced through spectators and exploded, killing at least 83 people in the world's deadliest air-show disaster.
The SU-27's two crew members ejected to safety, but 116 others on the ground were injured, an Emergencies Ministry spokesman said. Authorities said they expected the death toll to grow.
Dozens of bodies lay sprawled on the Sknyliv airfield in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv after the crash shattered a serene summer day. Many other victims sat dazed and bloodied.
People rushed to ambulances holding limp children in their arms, and others made announcements over the public-address system calling for loved ones to come forward.
Parents frantically searched for children. One group of children with cuts on their faces and arms sat stunned.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma flew to the scene, setting up a government commission to investigate and vowing that those responsible would be punished.
Hours later, Kuchma fired the commander of the Ukrainian air force, Col. Gen. Viktor Strelnikov. The commander of the 14th Air Corps was also dismissed; there was no explanation, however, on whether safety guidelines had been breached.
Officially, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said it was too early to say what caused the crash. But Sergei Babakov, a Defense Ministry spokesman in the capital, Kiev, said the most likely cause was engine failure as the plane flew close to the ground.
"The pilots were helpless; they could not do anything with the plane, and the only thing they had left was to eject. That saved their lives," he said. He added that human error had not been ruled out.
The reputation of Ukraine's military was severely dented in October when 78 people aboard a Russian passenger jet were killed when the plane was hit by a stray Ukrainian missile fired during Black Sea military exercises. Ukrainian authorities at first emphatically denied responsibility.
Yesterday, Russian television stations aired footage of the plane sinking after it failed to come out of a difficult aerobatics roll, brushing a tree, clipping another plane and hitting the runway, where it hurtled on its wing and nose, spraying shrapnel at spectators.
About 1,500 people had gathered for the air show to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the 14th Air Force Division, based at Lviv.
Svetlana Bachinskaya, 34, made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go to the air show with two of her sons: Mikhail, 7, and Roman 12.
She had begun moving her sons toward the exit shortly before the crash, but they begged to stay.
"What we saw next was a sheer nightmare," she said. "The plane had already flown above us twice, and this time it was coming down on us with a horrible unbearable noise, flying at a very low altitude, right above people's heads.
|
After the plane exploded, there was a wave of heat, as if she had been pushed into a sauna, she said.
"And there was stuff in the air — pieces of metal, debris, people. It was the worst sight I have ever seen in my life," she said. "I did not know what to do — whether to lie down on the ground, like many other people did, or to grab my sons and run for my life."
Vladimir Dzhas, 12, who was with his father, Vasily, when the plane crashed, at first thought the massive fireball was part of the show, "just like one of those explosions that they show on TV, not for real."
"But when I looked at my dad and saw that he was standing all pale, I realized that something terrible happened."
In the seconds after the crash, Vladimir said, it was "like in a silent movie: the plane, the people and the smoke. And then it felt like someone took cotton pads out of my ears. All of a sudden, it was very loud and the screams of people around us were tearing my ears apart."
Speaking to the local television station in Lviv, Kuchma, the president, said he would consider banning air shows.
He said the pilots were highly experienced; both were colonels, Vladimir Toponar, 45, and Yuri Yegorov, 49. But he said much of Ukraine's military hardware had passed its use-by date.
Ukrainian air-force Maj. Gen. Vadim Hrechaninov, a former adviser to the Ukrainian president, said after viewing film of the crash that safety measures appeared to have been inadequate.
"The main trouble was the lack of adequate safety precautions on the ground that could have helped the pilots to maneuver away from the crowds in an emergency," he said.
He said the plane was flying too low.
The black box was recovered after the crash.
Kuchma promised more than $1.9 million would be set aside from the federal budget in an initial fund for funerals and medical costs for victims.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences, the presidential press office said.
The SU-27 fighter has been in service since the mid-1980s and has a reputation as a reliable and maneuverable aircraft.
Reports on an engine failure were sketchy and unconfirmed. But the cash crisis that has hit air-force units in former Soviet states has led to problems.
An SU-30, an updated version of the SU-27, crashed at the Paris air show in 1999, but both pilots ejected from the plane, which fell half a mile from the audience.
Another of the world's worst air-show disasters was at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany, in 1988, when three Italian air-force jets collided during a maneuver, and one crashed into the crowd, killing 70 and injuring 400.
Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.