2024-03-25 12:31:58
- The plane was carrying from Budapest to Berlin iodine 131 for medical purposes, the area becomes radioactive
- Just 10 meters is not enough on an airplane to fly over above the hill Sakra Kray Bratislava. There are no survivors
On December 27, 1946, by Decree No. 8 of the Ministry of the Interior of Bulgaria, the Air Communications Directorate was established. It has 3 Junkers Ju 52/3m three-engine transport planes, 2 Focke-Wulf 58 twin-engine training planes and 3 Fiesler-Storch single-engine medical planes.
The pilot Boris Ganev was appointed as the first chief director with the deputies engineer Dushko Kondov and Dragan Shishkov. The first regular Sofia – Burgas air line was opened by Georgi Dimitrov on June 29, 1947. At the end of the year, three Po-2 and two Li-2p aircraft were bought, with which the first regular international line Sofia was opened on February 13, 1948 – Belgrade – Budapest – Prague.
On November 3, 1948, a mixed Bulgarian-Soviet company for civil air transport – TABSO (Bulgarian-Soviet Transport-Aviation Society) was established in Moscow. TABSO started working on August 1, 1949 and continued its activity for 5 years
Bulgaria gradually bought out the shares of the USSR and the assets of the joint venture became the exclusive property of the state. The new airline kept the TABSO name and logo until 1968, when it was renamed “Bulgarian Balkan Airlines”.
In the popular company logo (star with wings) the name TABSO is replaced by BALKAN.
On November 24, 1966, TABSO suffered its first and only accident near Bratislava. More than 10 accidents have been recorded on the account of “Balkan”. The worst was 1971 – three planes fell.
All 74 passengers and 8 crew members perished in the brutal plane crash of the Bulgarian Il-18 near Bratislava on November 24, 1966. Ivan Slavkov’s first wife – the beautiful stewardess Svetla Marinova – also died there.
In dense fog and heavy snowfall at 16:30 local time, the plane crashed into Mount Sakra, Lesser Carpathians. He is less than 10m away from flying over the top.
The plane crashed between the villages of Racha and Jurom in the Vainor Valley. Its decay begins with the first strike south of the summit and ends all the way to the north side. A strip of 325 m of the forest was literally shaved off by the disintegrating machine.
The rescue operation is hampered by the rapidly accumulating snow cover. As well as the increased radioactivity of the area, as the plane was carrying iodine 131 from Budapest to Berlin for medical purposes.
Sapper units made a special road to the crash site, cranes were quickly brought there to lift the heavy remains of the plane. Sanitary and disinfection tents were built. The rescuers are dressed in special rubberized clothing, each equipped with a device to measure radioactivity.
The plane takes off on November 24 from the Sofia airport at 9:50 a.m. on the route Sofia – Budapest – Prague – Berlin. After a short stay in Budapest, he heads to Prague. 140 km from the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, the crew received a message that due to bad weather they had to land in Bratislava.
Our IL-18 stayed there for about 3 and a half hours. At 4:28 p.m., he received permission to take off to Prague just four minutes after a Czechoslovak IL-14 took off from the runway. It is assumed that this is why the air traffic controller from the Bratislava airport set our plane at a height of only 300 m and with a turn towards the city of Nitra.
Radio operator Nikola Tasev repeats the data to the dispatcher and receives confirmation of their accuracy. The weather is bad, wet snow continues to fall, a pulsating northwesterly wind blows at a speed of 7-13 m per second.
This is where it starts
the tragedy
One of the tape recorders in the flight control center in Bratislava keeps a recording of the conversation between the lead controller of our Il-18 and another person. The other asks the dispatcher why he gave him only 300 m. The answer is that there are three planes in the air – the Bulgarian, the Czechoslovakian and at the top, at 3000 m – an Austrian one, but everything will be fine. The host then looks for a connection with ours, but he no longer responds.
Just two minutes and ten seconds after takeoff, the Il-18 hit Mount Sakra, rising to a height of 310 m.
Even then, the Bulgarian authorities rejected the version that the cause of the crash was a malfunction in the plane or poor qualification of the crew. Il-18 is commanded by Lubomir Antonov, who began his career as a pilot in 1949. He has over 12,000 hours in the air and three “Millionaire” badges. That is, he flew over three million kilometers.
Co-pilot is Svetomir Shakadanov, on-board mechanic – engineer Stoyan Rangelov, navigator – Slavi Tomakov, radio operator – Nikola Tasev, and flight attendants – Maria Ivanova, Svetla Marinova and Violina Stoichkova.
Boyan Traikov describes
the tragedy in Pogled village
Immediately after the accident, the “Pogled” newspaper sent the young journalist Boyan Traikov to the scene of the event.
The weekly began to be published at the beginning of the same year 1966 and already with its first issue won the trust of the readers with non-standard texts, photos and comments for its time.
Boyan is the son of Georgi Traikov, then chairman of the Presidium of the National Assembly, and holds an international passport. This allows him to reach the crash almost unhindered.
In its issue of December 5, 1966, the newspaper published Boyan Traikov’s report on the fourth page, but there was not even a dispatch on the first page. In order to overcome the ideological barriers of the time and not to disturb the Bulgarian-Czechoslovak friendship in any way, the colleagues resorted to a small trick.
In an introductory note, they write that the editors of “View” have many questions from readers. Where exactly did the accident happen? Will the victims be found? What is the flight crew like? How did the accident happen? Who is to blame?
Boyan Traikov has the courage to tell about the recordings of the tape recorder at the command post of the Bratislava airport, before the absolute ban fell.
In order to soften the blow that Traikov and the bosses of “Pogled” expect, the journalist ends the report like this: “As for the reasons, I cannot answer that question. I’m sorry, but I don’t have the “competence” of some colleagues, who the other day came up with some reasons for the crash, so the chairman of the commission investigating the case, Jaroslav Dvořák – director of the Czechoslovak Civil Aviation Inspectorate – had to issue an official statement on behalf of the commission that all these versions are not true.
However, I will take the liberty of informing our readers that all specialists are unanimous, this is confirmed by material evidence and research, that the cause of the crash was not a malfunction of the aircraft’s engines or in its radio and other navigational equipment. We have no reason to doubt the precision of the piloting by the aircraft crew. Only the commission has the right to answer the question: Who is to blame? We will have to wait for her final word.”
According to the practice at the time, the final word of the commission was blurred over time. The Bulgarian public never officially learned the true cause of the tragedy.
Camellia Santova,
stewardess: “Svetla would have
to go on a honeymoon
with Ivan Slavkov
I was in the backup crew for that flight. If one of the flight attendants didn’t come, I would get on the plane. Everything was fine though, I sent the crew to the plane’s ladder and wished them a safe flight. After him, Svetla and Ivan had to go on their honeymoon.
The night before, we were thinking until late about what gift to buy for the new family in Berlin – a video camera or a pressure cooker. Both of these things were quite chic at the time. In the end, we decided that the pot was too rustic and opted for the video camera.
After the plane took off, I went home early, I had a toothache. In the evening, a colleague came and said that our plane had crashed near Bratislava. We don’t have a flight there, I said, but anxiety was starting to gnaw at me. And then she told me about the forced landing of our plane at the Bratislava airport and then its crash on takeoff.
The tragedy came as a shock to us all. Since the establishment of TABSO in 1946, there has been no accident with our aircraft. The crashed IL-18 did not even have a radar. But our pilots were exceptional professionals. That is why no one believed that the cause of the accident near Bratislava was due to an error by the crew.
Katya Popova died in this accident. A young and extremely gifted opera singer who was predicted to have a brilliant future. Dora Belcheva, then Minister of Trade, was incredibly lucky. She gets off the plane in Bratislava because at the last minute it occurs to her that she can hold several important meetings in the capital of Slovakia.
It so happened that after a while I was in the crew that returned to Bulgaria the members of the Bulgarian commission that investigated the causes of the accident. No one explained them, but there was a doctor who quite figuratively and even cynically explained how the rescuers found legs, arms and other parts of the bodies of those who died under Mount Sakra. That shocked me! In less than a month, I got off the planes.”