On Tuesday, seven members of the crew of Tu-154 plane that crashed August 22 near Donetsk, Ukraine, were buried at the Bolsheokhtinkoe Cemetery of January 9 Victims.
Photo: Nikita Infantyev
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Powerless Before Nature
Past Tuesday, St. Petersburg was saying the last farewell to the crew of Tu-154 plane that crashed August 22 near Donetsk, Ukraine. Tu-154 captain Ivan Korogodin was laid to rest in the town of Pushkino, close to St. Petersburg, as it was the wish of his relatives. Other seven members of the crew were buried at the Bolsheokhtinkoe Cemetery of January 9 Victims.
Russian Tu-154 airplane of Pulkovo Airlines crashed near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk August 22, 2006, killing all passengers, who were returning to St. Petersburg from Anapa seaside resort, and all members of the crew.
The memorial service for pilots and cabin-attendants of Tu-154 was held in the outskirts of St. Petersburg. The crowd was big; friends and relatives of the aviators formed a queue of 100 meters to the local Center of Culture, where the coffins were displayed for the final adieu.
The coffins of pilots – captain Ivan Korogodin, second pilots Vladimir Onishchenko and Andrey Khodnevich, flight engineer Viktor Makarov - and a table with the picture of navigator Igor Levchenko buried in the homeland, the Krasnodar region, on August 28, were placed on the one side of the hall.
On the other side, there were coffins with the cabin crew – Svetlana Semichikina, Yulia Kirchenkova and Alexey Shaposhnikov. The bodies of Tatyana Bagretsova and Lilia Marysheva haven’t been identified so far.
“My daughter, my dear daughter,” the mother of Yulia Kirchenkova was weeping, her face on the coffin’s cover. Other relatives were lamenting in unison. Friends, colleagues, relatives of deceased were approaching the coffins one after another.
Pulkovo Airlines General Director Gennady Boldyrev and Pulkovo Deputy Flight Director Anatoly Gorokhovsky offered ceremonial condolences to the relatives. “Unfortunately, the mankind is powerless before nature,” Gorokhovsky said, as if challenging the future conclusion of the government's commission that may blame the crash on the crew.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 31, 2006
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