Warning: This article contains graphic description and video which some readers may find distressing
A black box recording has unveiled the final words of a pilot as his aircraft spiraled out of control and crashed after he permitted his children to enter the cockpit.
On March 23, 1994, Aeroflot’s Flight 593, with 63 passengers, nine flight attendants, and three pilots, tragically went down.
The flight was en route from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Russia, to Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, China when relief pilot Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky let his children enter the cockpit, leading to disaster.
Yaroslav’s children, Yana, 12, and Eldar, 16, visited their father, and he allowed them to interact with the aircraft’s controls while it was on autopilot.
Although the autopilot was engaged, preventing direct control by the children, Eldar managed to deactivate the autopilot briefly by pushing the controls too forcefully for about 30 seconds.
During this brief time, Eldar inadvertently took control of the plane’s movements, setting the stage for a catastrophic event.
The incident was captured on audio by the plane’s black box.
Yana can be heard voicing a complaint to her dad, who then warns her: “Don’t run there, or they’ll fire us.”
As the aircraft began to deviate from its flight path, veering to the right, Eldar realized there was an issue.
Within moments, the pilots aboard noticed the problem, but the aircraft had already angled nearly 90 degrees—a position beyond the Airbus A310’s capabilities.
The plane began a rapid descent, entered a stall, and automatically initiated a dive to recover.
The pilots regained control and pulled the plane out of the dive; however, they underestimated the force needed, resulting in a second stall.
“Go to the back! Go to the back, Eldar!” Yaroslav shouted as the pilots struggled for control. “You see the danger, don’t you?”
As they attempted to correct the situation and stabilize the aircraft, Yaroslav directed his children: “Get out now! All is normal.”
The recording then abruptly ends.
Though the pilots managed to stabilize the spinning aircraft, it had lost too much altitude and crashed into the Kuznetsk Alatau mountain range, resulting in the loss of all onboard.
Subsequent investigations indicated no technical malfunctions, attributing the crash mainly to the children having been allowed to manipulate the flight controls.
Tragically, it was discovered that if the pilots had left the correction to the autopilot instead of intervening manually, the situation could have resolved itself, potentially saving all passengers.
Following the incident, an Aeroflot spokesperson stated that cockpit discipline had been significantly reinforced.
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