The biggest maritime disasters in history

The largest and most famous civilian maritime disasters that claimed the lives of people:

• 26/27 July 2009: A boat loaded with Haitian migrants capsized near the Turks and Caicos Islands. The police found 11 bodies, 70 people were declared missing.

• March 29, 2009: A wooden boat full of migrants to Europe from Libya capsized in the Mediterranean. All 237 passengers, most of them African migrants, drowned.

• June 21, 2008: The ferry Princess of the Stars, owned by Philippine company Sulpicio Lines, suddenly lists and capsizes off the coast of the Philippines during Typhoon Fengshen. More than 800 people died.

• February 3, 2006: More than 1,000 people drowned after a fire en route from Saudi Arabia to the Egyptian port of Safaga.

• September 26, 2002: A Senegalese ferry capsized in a storm off the Gambian coast in West Africa killing 1800 people.

• 21 May 1996: Ferry sank in Lake Victoria at East Africa over 800 people died.

• 28 September 1994: The ferry Estonia sank during a storm in the Baltic Sea en route from Tallinn to Stockholm, killing 852 people. Most of the passengers were Scandinavians, while most of the teams were Estonians.

• 16 February 1993: An overloaded ferry sank between Jeremy and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with a death toll estimated at 500-700.

• August 31, 1986: The Soviet steamer "Admiral Nakhimov", built in 1925, collided with the merchant ship "Pyotr Vasaev" and sank at 23:20 on August 31, 1986 abeam Cape Doob, Black Sea, at a depth of 47 meters and is located on the ground to date. Of the 1234 people (according to official figures), 423 people died, about 64 people still remain inside the ship's hull.

• May 25, 1986: About 600 people die when a ferry sinks on the Meghna River in Bangladesh.

• January 27, 1981: 580 people died when the Indonesian passenger ship Tamponas II caught fire and sank in the Java Sea.

• July 25, 1956: The two passenger liners Andrea Doria and Stockholm collided near Massachusetts, sinking the Andrea Doria, killing 46 of 1,706 passengers and crew.

• May 7, 1915: The British ocean liner Lusitania was torpedoed and scuttled by a German U-boat while crossing Atlantic Ocean, 18 minutes walk from Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. 1,195 of the 1,959 people on board died. This flood has turned public opinion in many countries against Germany and was in fact the event that drew the US into the First world war. This event is considered the second most famous civil disaster at sea, after the sinking of the Titanic.

• May 29, 1914: A Canadian Pacific steamer, the Empress of Ireland, collided with the Norwegian freighter SS Storstad near Quebec while passing through the St. Lawrence River during fog. The ship's captain had just been promoted to this post, and this was his first voyage in this capacity. The critically damaged vessel sank within 14 minutes. The disaster claimed the lives of 1,012 of the 1,477 passengers, making it the most tragic maritime disaster in Canadian history.

• April 12, 1912: The Titanic, the world's largest passenger steamer of the time, collided with an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean on its maiden voyage and sank within 2 hours and 40 minutes. As a result of the disaster, 1,517 people died, making this collision one of the deadliest in the history of peacetime maritime disasters. Such a high mortality rate is attributed to the fact that despite meeting the regulations of the time, the ship did not have enough lifeboats for all passengers. The number of seats in the lifeboats was 1,178, while there were 3,547 people on board. A disproportionate number of men died because of the "women and children first" rule that was enforced.

• June 15, 1904: The steamboat General Slocum caught fire on the East River in New York, killing over 1,000 people.

• April 27, 1865: The steamship Sultana sank after its chimney exploded on the Mississippi River, killing at least 1,700 people.

Much was kept silent in the USSR. Any information should not, under any circumstances, fall into the Western media. The local domestic media also fell under the total super-secrecy of everything and everything.

AT modern world news is too accessible - in part this has led to mass manipulation of people's minds. In Soviet times, the model of complete calm and order was fine-tuned to the ideal. Soviet citizens were not given information about large-scale catastrophes, about corruption, about violence, about aggression - they took care of their psyche. And if it was reported, then not immediately. Not to mention representatives Western press… This was how the illusion was created that everything was in order in a huge country, the economy was developing and progressing.

In fact, if you look at the scale - it was. We were a great power and there is some merit in this state control of the media. With all the freedom of speech and all the democratic bells and whistles today, I would rather start and end my day with good, kind, positive news, but it seems that there is simply no such news today. It has gone to the extreme - everyone is telling the truth, as it were, everyone knows everything. In reality, the reality of modern media looks something like this:

I have two news for you, one good and one bad. Which one to start with?
- Well, let's have a good one.
- Good news - bad news no.
- Well, what's the bad thing?
There is no good news either...

Okay, now to the point of the article:

The largest, of course, is the well-known Chernobyl accident, which happened in 1986. The total number of people who died after the accident from radiation exposure is approximately 600 thousand people, of which approximately 4 thousand people died from cancer or blood diseases. O Chernobyl accident became known to the whole world in a matter of hours. It was impossible to hide a catastrophe of this magnitude. But our list today includes other accidents that the authorities, for obvious reasons, preferred not to talk about, and it was forbidden to print about them for some time.

No. 1. Nuclear waste explosion at the Mayak chemical plant in Chelyabinsk-40 (1957)

Explosion at the Mayak plant, Photo: kommersant.ru

It was the first radiation accident in the history of our country, the first atomic catastrophe in the USSR. The tragedy is better known as the "Kyshtym accident", since the chemical plant was located in Chelyabinsk-40 (now Ozersk), and Kyshtym was the closest city to it, indicated on the maps.

No one died directly from the explosion. On the first day after the explosion, servicemen from the nearest unit and prisoners from the colony, which was also nearby, were withdrawn from the affected area. And only a week or two after the accident, the evacuation began local population, and even then only from the most affected settlements.

An explosion, estimated at tens of tons of TNT, occurred in a container for radioactive waste: the cooling system failed. But this story with the cooling system is the official version. There was another version - unofficial: a solution of plutonium oxalate was mistakenly added to the evaporator tank with a hot solution of plutonium nitrate. During the oxidation of oxalate with nitrate, a large number of energy, which led to overheating and explosion of the container containing the radioactive mixture. The container, located in a concrete canyon at a depth of 8.2 m, was destroyed, a concrete floor 1 meter thick and weighing 160 tons was thrown aside by 25 meters; from the explosion within a radius of up to 1 km, glass was knocked out in buildings; about 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere.

> for comparison: during the Chernobyl accident, about 380 million curies were emitted, that is, about 19 times more.

A huge territory with a population of 270 thousand people, which included three regions: Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen, turned out to be in the zone of radiation contamination.

Losses came later - among the hundreds of thousands of military personnel and civilian workers involved in the elimination of the consequences of the accident. All of them received significant doses of radiation. Now the nuclear reserve "East Ural radioactive trace" is located at the site of the accident. You cannot visit it: the level of radioactivity in it is still very high.

The authorities hid information about the disaster both from the population of the country and from the inhabitants of the Urals, who found themselves in the zone of radioactive contamination. A column of smoke and dust up to a kilometer high, flickering with orange-red light, was called the "aurora borealis" in the newspapers. But the fact of the accident in the Urals soon became known abroad. The Danish press was the first to report on this. True, the message was not entirely accurate: it claimed that some kind of accident had occurred during Soviet nuclear tests.

No. 2. Explosion of a ballistic missile at Baikonur (1960)

This was not the only catastrophe at Baikonur, but one of the largest that occurred at the cosmodrome in Soviet period. It happened on October 24, 1960. A fundamentally new Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile R-16.

The Chairman of the State Commission for testing R-16 was the Commander-in-Chief himself Rocket troops strategic purpose(RVSN) - Marshal of Artillery M. I. Nedelin. As often happened in Soviet history, wanted to give a gift for the 43rd anniversary October revolution, carry out the first launch before November 7.

In a hurry, all conceivable and unimaginable violations of safety regulations were committed. As a result, during the tests there was a premature start of the engine and an explosion of propellant. Burned and later died from burns and wounds, according to various sources, from 92 to 126 people. Among the dead was Marshal Nedelin.

Information about the tragedy was classified, there were no official reports of the disaster. Relatives and friends of the victims were advised not to talk about the accident. Even Marshal Nedelin, according to an official statement, "died tragically in a plane crash."

The Roskosmos TV Studio devoted an interesting article to this tragic event. documentary: "The day the rockets don't launch."

Number 3. Collision of airliners over Dneprodzerzhinsk (1979)

This plane crash is one of the largest in aviation history. In terms of the number of victims in the history of the USSR, it ranks second, and among the collisions of aircraft in the world - the third.

(flights Chelyabinsk - Chisinau and Tashkent - Minsk)

In the sky over Dneprodzerzhinsk (Ukrainian SSR), two Aeroflot Tu-134 planes (Chelyabinsk-Chisinau and Tashkent-Minsk flights) collided, killing all 178 people on them. Among the dead were 17 players of the Uzbek football club"Pakhtakor". On that day, in the Kharkiv control center, in violation of the instructions, an inexperienced dispatcher was in the most stressed sector. The situation was further complicated by the fact that one of the three air corridors was "booked" for the top party nomenklatura member Chernenko, who was supposed to fly that day to Brezhnev, who was vacationing in the Crimea.

Pakhtakor-79

When the controllers saw that the planes were going across each other, they gave the command to one of the sides to gain altitude. The answer was: “Understood.” The controllers calmed down, deciding that the command was being carried out by the right aircraft. In fact, the crew of the third aircraft in general answered - Il-62, flying to Tashkent. A minute later, two Tu-134s collided in the air ...

This catastrophe would have been hushed up, like the others, if not for the death of the whole football team, and from the major leagues. As a result, although this plane crash did not receive wide publicity in the USSR (only in the newspaper " Soviet sport"a tiny note was placed about the death of Pakhtakor"), but on international level she did not hesitate.

No. 4. The death of an aircraft with the command staff of the Pacific Fleet near Leningrad (1981)

Photo: Inosmi.ru

During takeoff from a military airfield in the city of Pushkin (near Leningrad), a Tu-104 transport aircraft crashed, in which were the commander of the Pacific Fleet, almost all of his deputies, half personnel headquarters, command of naval aviation, flotillas, brigades and squadrons.

At one point, the Pacific Fleet lost command. A total of 52 people died, among them 16 admirals. For comparison: for the entire Great Patriotic War Soviet fleet lost only four admirals.

The cause of the tragedy was the overload of the aircraft. In addition to heavy safes with maps and documents, they carried a lot of scarce goods that the authorities were able to get in Leningrad: household appliances, furniture, even fruit. The crew understood that the plane was overloaded, and informed the dispatcher about this, but he did not dare to object to the high authorities.

The overload of the tail section, the sudden increase in wind, the incorrect centering of the aircraft and, probably, the cargo that had shifted after takeoff - all this led to a disaster. The plane, after taking off at 50 meters, fell on the tail and starboard side and fell. Upon impact, the fuel caught fire - no one managed to survive. Eyewitnesses recalled that after the crash, the entire strip was covered with scarce oranges. After the disaster, all Tu-104s were decommissioned by the Air Force.

No. 5. The death of the ship "Alexander Suvorov" (1983)

Motor ship "A. Suvorov". Rostov embankment. Spring 1983

Cruise ship on the route Rostov-on-Don - Moscow, on top speed(25 km / h) entered the non-navigable span of the Ulyanovsk bridge across the Volga and, by inertia, passed under the bridge for another 300 meters. As a result, the ship was literally cut off the entire top part: cabin, cinema hall, chimneys. The situation was aggravated by the fact that at that time there was a freight train. Due to the collision of the ship with the bridge, the train was displaced by 40 centimeters. As a result, part of the wagons overturned, and their cargo (coal, grain, logs) spilled onto the ship, increasing the number of victims.

The death toll, according to various sources, ranged from 176 to 600 people. Difficulties with counting are due to the fact that the ship was overloaded. In addition to 330 passengers, 50 crew members and 35 service personnel, acquaintances and relatives of the crew members were not quite officially on board. Unfortunately, most of the passengers were on the upper deck (in the cinema hall and on the dance floor), completely destroyed during the collision with the bridge - hence big number victims.

One of the main reasons for the tragedy that occurred late in the evening was the lack of signal lights on the bridge. In addition, on the ill-fated non-navigable span, there was a lineman's booth, which in the dark looked like a signal board marking the ship's span.

No. 6. The death of two trains near Ufa (1989)

Land and forest burned for many tens of meters on both sides railway.

This catastrophe is the largest in the history of the national railway transport. At the time of the oncoming passage of two passenger trains - "Novosibirsk - Adler" and "Adler - Novosibirsk" - there was powerful explosion. Of the 1370 passengers (among them 383 children), 575 people died (according to other sources - 645), of which 181 were children; 623 people were injured.

The explosion was so strong that the shock wave knocked out windows in a neighboring city, located more than 10 kilometers from the scene, and the column of fire was visible even for 100 kilometers.

What's next town! The explosion triggered the North American system alarm air defense(NORAD)! The Americans decided that the "Soviets" experienced another atomic bomb. According to experts, the power of the explosion was almost equal to the force nuclear explosion in Hiroshima.

What caused such a devastating explosion? On a nearby pipeline Western Siberia- Ural - the Volga region, along which a liquefied gas-gasoline mixture was transported, a hole of one and a half meters was formed. The gas released through the hole accumulated in a lowland, not far from the railway track.

Part of the wagons was torn to shreds, the rest burned down.

A few hours before the disaster, the instruments showed a drop in pressure in the pipeline. However, instead of looking for a leak, the personnel on duty only increased the gas supply to restore pressure. As a result, even more gas leaked out under increased pressure. The drivers of the passing trains warned the section dispatcher that there was a strong gas contamination on the stage, but they did not attach any importance to this. Ctrl + Enter .

We all know about the ill-fated history of the Titanic, but few know that this tragedy was only the third largest loss in the history of shipping. Today we suggest you familiarize yourself with the list of the 10 most terrible disasters that occurred on the water.

1. MV Wilhelm Gustloff.
In January 1945, this German ship was hit by three torpedoes in the Baltic Sea while participating in the evacuation. civilians, military personnel and Nazi officials who were surrounded by the Red Army in East Prussia. The ship sank in less than 45 minutes. More than 9,400 people are estimated to have died.

2. MV Dona Paz.
This Philippine ferry sank after colliding with the oil tanker MT Vector on December 20, 1987. More than 4300 people died. The collision occurred late at night and resulted in a fire, and life jackets were locked, forcing passengers to jump into the burning water, which was also infested with sharks.

3. RMS Lusitania.
This British liner sailed on the Liverpool-New York route. During World War I, the ship was hit by German torpedoes on 7 May 1915 and sank within only 18 minutes of impact. The crash killed 1,198 people out of 1,959 on board.

4. RMS Lancastria.
This British ocean liner was requisitioned by the government during World War II. She sank on June 17, 1940, taking 4,000 lives with her. This disaster caused the death more people than the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania combined.

5. RMS Empress of Ireland.
This Canadian liner sank in the St. Lawrence River after colliding with a Norwegian bulk carrier on May 29, 1914 due to heavy fog. 1012 people died (840 passengers and 172 crew members).

6. MV Goya.
The German transport ship MV Goya was carrying 6,100 passengers when it was sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea on April 16, 1945. The ship sank just 7 minutes after the impact. Almost all the people on board died. Only 183 people survived.

7. USS Indianapolis (CA-35).
On July 30, 1945, Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-58 and sank 12 minutes later. Out of 1196 people, only 300 survived.

8. MV Le Joola.
A Senegalese ferry capsized off the Gambian coast on September 26, 2002, killing at least 1,863 people. As it became known, the ferry was overloaded, therefore, faced with a storm, it capsized after 5 minutes. Only 64 people survived.

9. SS Mont-Blanc.
This French ammunition freighter exploded in Halifax Harbor on December 6, 1917. The explosion caused the death of 2,000 people, including residents of the city. The explosion was triggered by a collision with the Norwegian ship SS Imo. The fire that resulted from the collision caused an explosion of ammunition that destroyed the harbor and the city.

10. RMS Titanic.
This is perhaps the most famous maritime tragedy of all time. The Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. The sinking of the Titanic claimed 1,514 human lives.

The sinking of the Titanic after a collision with an iceberg in 1912 became a symbol for decades to come of all the major maritime disasters that occurred in Peaceful time. By the end of the 20th century, people again began to have the illusion that tragedies of this kind had gone down in history. The retribution for such delusions always turns out to be cruel.

On August 31, 1986, a catastrophe occurred in the Tsemess Bay near Novorossiysk, which later became known as the "Soviet Titanic". But, unlike the story of 1912, in this case there was no iceberg - the crash was exclusively the work of human hands.

Trophy "Berlin"

The Soviet cruise ship "Admiral Nakhimov" was launched in March 1925 in Lobbendorf, Germany, and received the name "Berlin". In the early years of its existence, Berlin operated flights from Germany to New York. By the end of the 1930s, transatlantic voyages became unprofitable, and the ship was transferred to Mediterranean cruises.

With the outbreak of World War II, the Berlin was converted into a hospital ship and was used as such until 1945. In January 1945, she hit a mine near the port of Swinemünde and sank at a shallow depth. In 1947, the ship was raised by Soviet divers and sent for partial repairs to the docks of the Kronstadt port. The ship that became a trophy received a new name - "Admiral Nakhimov", after which he went to his homeland, to Germany. In the GDR, the ship underwent a major overhaul and in 1957 became part of the Black Sea Shipping Company.

"Berlin", 1920s. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Prestigious holidays and special operations

"Admiral Nakhimov" became in the USSR a symbol of a prestigious cruise vacation, hitherto unfamiliar Soviet citizens. However, sometimes it was used for other purposes. Yes, during Caribbean Crisis Soviet military personnel were transferred to Cuba on board, and in 1979 - Cuban military personnel to carry out secret mission in Africa.

In the history of "Admiral Nakhimov" there were flights with pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, and swimming with the participants of the World Festival of Youth and Students. The ship had an exceptional reputation - for almost three decades of its operation in the USSR, not a single serious incident was recorded with its participation.

Time, however, made itself felt - in the 1980s, the Admiral Nakhimov changed long-distance flights to cruises on the Black Sea. These cruises were wildly successful among the unspoiled inhabitants of the USSR.

The promenade deck of the Admiral Nakhimov in 1957. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Flight Odessa - Batumi - Odessa

August 29, 1986 "Admiral Nakhimov" went on a regular flight on the route Odessa - Batumi - Odessa with calls to Yalta, Novorossiysk and Sochi. The cruise was supposed to end on September 5th. After leaving Odessa, the ship safely reached Yalta, and then at 14:00 on August 31 arrived in Novorossiysk. At 22:00, the liner was to leave the port and head for Sochi. There were 1243 people on board: 346 crew members and 897 passengers.

Since 1984, he has been the captain of the Admiral Nakhimov Vadim Markov, an experienced sailor who had a job on the lines of foreign navigation. Captain Markov knew his ship very well, and the exit from the port did not promise any dangers.

According to the message of the traffic control post (PRDS), at that moment the only ship approached the port of Novorossiysk - the dry cargo ship "Pyotr Vasev", carrying Canadian barley. Captain commanded the cargo ship Viktor Tkachenko, who said that he would miss the steamer leaving the bay.

"Pyotr Vasyov" goes towards

With a delay of 10 minutes from the schedule, "Admiral Nakhimov" unmoored and rushed to the port exit. The steamer passed the gates of the port, entered the course 154.2 and began to follow the direction of the buoys of the Penai banks, which were located at the exit from the bay.

Peace reigned on board. Some of the passengers went to bed, some were going to a movie show, the youth were at a disco in the music room, some of the people were in bars.

At this time, Captain Tkachenko once again confirmed that Pyotr Vasyov would let Admiral Nakhimov through. Tkachenko transmitted the same information via radio communication to the second assistant to the captain of the Admiral Nakhimov. Alexander Chudnovsky, who at 23:00 took over the watch from Captain Markov. Tkachenko and Chudnovsky agreed that the ships would part on their starboard sides. Captain Tkachenko was guided by the indications of ARPA - an automated radar plotting system. The data of this device indicated that the ships would safely disperse.

But Chudnovsky, who was on the Admiral Nakhimov, who was observing the situation visually, already at about 23:05 discovered that the ships were heading for a dangerous approach. The officer on duty contacted Tkachenko again, clarifying: “Pyotr Vasyov” definitely misses the steamer? Captain Tkachenko confirmed: yes, everything is in order.

"Pyotr Vasyov". Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

"Work back immediately!"

In the meantime, there were those on the Pyotr Vasyov who saw that the situation was developing in a dangerous direction. Mate Zubuk drew Tkachenko's attention to the fact that the bearing on the "Admiral Nakhimov" practically does not change, which indicates the threat of a collision. At the same time, Zubuk pointed to the lights of the ship, which indicated that the ships were approaching a collision.

Captain Tkachenko looked only at the device with inexplicable obstinacy for several more minutes. And only then, finally looking where Zubyuk was pointing, he realized with horror - "Pyotr Vasyov" on high speed flies straight at the Admiral Nakhimov.

Captain Tkachenko began to give commands to the engine room - "medium forward", "small forward". These half-measures no longer helped, and last command Tkachenko became: “Stop, full back!”. However, a heavy cargo ship cannot change direction instantly. "Pyotr Vasev" continued to go to the "Admiral Nakhimov". On the ship, the officer on duty to the captain Alexander Chudnovsky radioed to the dry cargo ship: “Work back immediately!”. The helmsman of the "Admiral Nakhimov" was given the command: "Left aboard!".

"Nakhimov" went to the bottom in 8 minutes

This did not help - at 23:12 there was a collision. "Pyotr Vasev" at a speed of 5 knots entered at an angle of 110 ° in the middle of the starboard side of the ship. In the underwater part, the bulk carrier entered with its protruding part, the bulb, into the hull of the Admiral Nakhimov for several meters in the bulkhead area between the engine room and the boiler room. "Admiral Nakhimov" continued to move forward by inertia, turning the cargo ship and thereby increasing the size of the hole in the starboard side, which eventually amounted to about 80 square meters.

A huge hole led to the rapid flooding of the ship. In just 30 seconds, the engine room was filled with water. The ship began to roll to starboard. Emergency lighting, which switched on instead of the main one, worked for only two minutes. Many people were locked in cabins inside the sinking ship. All that the team members managed to do was launch inflatable rafts. 8 minutes after the collision, at 23:20, "Admiral Nakhimov" went under water, leaving hundreds of people fighting for their lives on the surface. Among them was not the assistant captain Alexander Chudnovsky. The sailor, realizing that the ship was dying, pronounced a death sentence on himself - having gone down to his cabin, he locked himself in it and, together with the Admiral Nakhimov, went to the bottom.

More than 60 ships rescued dying people

The first to approach the crash site was a small pilot boat LK-90, heading for the "Pyotr Vasyov" to escort it to the pier. "Admiral Nakhimov" sank in front of the crew members of the boat.

At 23:35 LK-90 proceeded to rescue people. 118 people were lifted on board a small boat, which is much more than the allowable load. Then the rescued began to be transferred to other approaching ships. At this time, the captain of the port of Novorossiysk Popov ordered all watercraft to go to the disaster area to save people. Tugs, small and raid boats, boats of border troops, "comets" on hydrofoils - a total of 64 vessels took part in the rescue operation.

Had to work in difficult conditions — strong wind, waves up to two meters. But the sailors did everything possible and impossible. The cadets of the Novorossiysk Higher Naval Engineering School, alerted, went out to sea on skiffs, risking their own death.

The crew of the dry-cargo ship Pyotr Vasyov also took part in the rescue operation, raising 36 people on board. Of the 1243 people on board, 423 were killed: 359 passengers and 64 crew members. Among the dead were 23 children.

Who is guilty?

A large government commission arrived from Moscow, headed by the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Heydar Aliyev, and with it a large investigation team.

As a result, both captains went to court - Viktor Tkachenko and Vadim Markov received 15 years in prison. Markov, who miraculously survived the crash, was blamed for his absence from the bridge. At the time of the disaster, the captain was in the cabin of the head of the KGB department for the Odessa region, Major General Krikunova where he was invited to dinner. Unlike Markov, General Krikunov died with his family.

For thirty years in the crash of "Admiral Nakhimov" whoever and what they were accused of - and anomalous zone, and the Soviet system, and the dilapidation of the ship, and saboteurs ... The story about the usual "human factor" cut many ears. "Admiral Nakhimov" took two more human lives already after the crash - two divers died, raising the bodies of the victims to the surface. After that, work on the ship was stopped, and the bodies of 64 people remained inside the Admiral Nakhimov hull.

The captain of the "Peter Vasyov" went to Israel and died in a shipwreck.

In 1992, after the collapse of the USSR, the presidents of Russia and Ukraine pardoned the convicted captains.

Vadim Markov, after his release, returned to Odessa, worked in the Black Sea Shipping Company as a captain-mentor. Due to persecution by the relatives of the deceased, his family had to change their place of residence several times. In 2007, the captain of the Admiral Nakhimov died of cancer.

The captain of the "Pyotr Vasyov" Viktor Tkachenko, having taken his wife's surname - Tallor, moved to permanent place residence in Israel, hoping that there the story of the death of "Admiral Nakhimov" would cease to interfere with his life. In 2003, the yacht, driven by Victor Tallor, was wrecked off the coast of Newfoundland. The wreckage of the yacht and the remains of people found on the coast of Canada.

The area of ​​the Tsemesskaya Bay, where the Admiral Nakhimov lies at a depth of 47 meters, is officially the burial place of the victims of the disaster. Anchoring, dives of divers and underwater vehicles, as well as any actions that disturb the peace of the burial place, are prohibited in the specified area.

One of the largest passenger liners of the USSR "Admiral Nakhimov" sank. The formal causes of the disaster have been established, however, there are too many nuances that cast doubt on the 1986 statements.

Assigned to Odessa, "Admiral Nakhimov" was built in 1925 in Germany and was then called "Berlin". Until 1939, he made regular flights across the Atlantic. In 1945, at the mouth of the Svine River (near Swinemünde), he hit a mine and sank at a depth of 13 meters.

In 1946, the ship crossed Soviet Union for reparations. When trying to raise the ship in early 1947, an explosion occurred again, and the ship again sank to the bottom. In the same 1947, the ship received a new name - "Admiral Nakhimov". Since 1957, the ship has been making cruise voyages along the Crimean-Caucasian line between the ports of Odessa, Yalta, Novorossiysk, Sochi, Sukhumi, Batumi. Let the worn liner go further Black Sea coast afraid, and he did not go abroad. Its last scheduled repair and classification "Admiral Nakhimov" took place in January-April 1985 in Varna, and then it was assigned a service life until November 30, 1986. But three months before this date, "the Russian Titanic" sank.

The blow occurred at 23:12 Moscow time - the dry cargo ship "Pyotr Vasev" rammed the "Nakhimov", as a result of which a hole of about 90 square meters in size was formed in the board. meters. The liner sank in 7-8 minutes.

There were 1234 people on board the cruise ship at the time, only 836 managed to escape.

For a long time nothing was reported about the disaster in the media. It was believed that people who had not yet recovered from the Chernobyl accident would find it difficult to accept another tragedy. The surviving passengers recalled that the crash was reported on the news in passing only at 4 p.m. on September 1. Those who tried to telegram their relatives in the morning that they were alive were not allowed to write about the disaster. An official statement appeared in the newspapers only five days later.

The captains were punished for the tragedy - they survived and were sentenced to 15 years in prison. The captain of the "Pyotr Vasev" Tkachenko was released early in 1992, later emigrated to Israel and died tragically in 2003. The captain of the "Admiral Nakhimov" Markov was also released in 1992 and continued to work as a mentor captain on the ships of the Black Sea Shipping Company.

It is difficult to imagine the horror of this catastrophe - "the Russian Titanic" was sinking at a tremendous speed. People simply did not have time to run out onto the deck, could not break through to the air from under the water due to the accumulation of bodies on the surface, many suffocated in the fuel spilled into the water. In addition, the engines were still working on the Vasev - people and even life rafts fell into it.

Disaster - the result of the use of microwave weapons?

The versions were different, but they agreed on one thing: basically the blame was placed on the captain of the cargo ship, who, having decided to make a "beautiful" maneuver, trusted the instruments, and not his own eyes. Captain Tkachenko pleaded guilty: "The main reason is that I agreed to give way to the ship, but I did not fulfill my obligation."

In this regard, it is worth saying that, according to experts, the equipment with which the "Pyotr Vasev" was equipped, although it was modern, according to the indications, differed from the usual.

Many naval experts doubted official versions. The court, and before it the investigation, left without investigation a key fact, according to many experts, the Trud newspaper notes: radar stations there was a mark of some third vessel, which was never identified.

Until the very moment of the collision, Tkachenko practically did not depart from the SARP (automated radar plotting system). Oddly enough, but the device showed a discrepancy with the vessel, which Tkachenko considered "Nakhimov", at 2 miles. The position of the unknown ship, judging by the instruments, created the illusion of an absolutely safe situation.

In addition, the portholes on the lower decks were open during the crash - this accelerated the ingress of water. The fact is that ventilation below was not provided, since the ship was intended for transporting prisoners, and not for cruises.

Another point: when designers design a passenger ship, they necessarily divide it into watertight compartments, with the expectation that if two compartments are flooded, the transport must remain afloat. On the "Admiral Nakhimov" in this disaster, two adjacent compartments were flooded at once: the blow of the "Peter Vasev" fatally hit the bulkhead separating the two compartments.

Experts recall that as early as July 8, 1986, almost two months before the disaster, the shipping company drew up an act: the ship was not suitable for further use, even considering that the service life was determined until November 30.

The inability to use lifeboats played a fatal role: it took up to half an hour to launch only one in ideal conditions, but with a list of only 1-2 degrees, the descent became impossible, and soon the roll was 40 degrees.

So who is to blame for the disaster? Sea captain Yevgeny Borovlev, who was on the Admiral Nakhimov, the senior assistant to the captain, is trying to answer this question in his memoirs. The memoirs published three years ago clarified a lot in the disaster. First, blaming captains is not enough, he says. “In this particular case, of course, the captain of the Pyotr Vasev, Viktor Tkachenko, is to some extent to blame. However, the punishment assigned to him significantly exceeded the degree of guilt.

Amateurs accused Vadim Markov, in particular, of not giving a boat alarm signal. The speed of the situation was such that practical value it no longer had and had no effect on the course of events. Professional sailors understood that the degree of Markov's guilt was minimal. Therefore, upon leaving the places of deprivation of liberty, he was accepted to the post of captain-mentor (that is, a person who trains sea captains) in the Black Sea Shipping Company. Now, when he is already close to eighty, Markov is still in demand, which emphasizes high class him as a specialist. Otherwise, he would not have been kept at work."

Major shipwrecks in the USSR and Russia

On October 7, 1916, the battleship Empress Maria caught fire, exploded and sank in the Northern Bay of Sevastopol. 228 people died, most of the crew, which was more than 1200 people, was saved.

February 13, 1934 in the Northern Arctic Ocean the ice-covered steamer "Chelyuskin" sank. One person died, another 104 passengers and crew members unloaded onto the ice and were later taken to the mainland.

On December 12, 1939, the steamer Indigirka, carrying prisoners, sank in the La Perouse Strait. Over 1,000 people were on board, 741 people died, 430 passengers were rescued.

On October 29, 1955, the battleship Novorossiysk was blown up in Sevastopol (apparently, on a mine left over from the war). 608 people died.

June 5, 1983 in Ulyanovsk, the ship "Suvorov" crashed into a bridge support. 176 people died.

On February 16, 1985, the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" stumbled upon a rock near New Zealand. The ship sank, but all passengers were rescued.

On August 31, 1986, the steamship "Admiral Nakhimov" collided with the cargo ship "Pyotr Vasev" in the Tsemess Bay of Novorossiysk. Over 400 people died.

On August 12, 2000, the nuclear submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea after a torpedo exploded on board. The entire crew was killed - 118 people.

The material was prepared by the online editorialwww.rian.ru based on information from the RIA Novosti Agency and other sources