I was born in the ancient Russian city of Pskov and left it to go to university. But every year my family and I went to my homeland at least once. In those early days, it was not at all costly, I could afford to travel by plane with a transfer in Moscow. It just so happens that when we were poor, we were rich, and when we began to live in a "democratic" society, travel to another city by plane immediately turned into a luxury.
So, in Pskov, I always helped my father to repair his car - the beautiful 21st Volga, to do something in the garage. There were always his neighbors in the garage, former colleagues, and they often told stories from army life. I want to remember one of these stories now. It was told by Georgy, a former landing instructor for the airborne division in Pskov. Seeing in me a grateful listener, he told about an unusual incident from his service. I apologize in advance if I name something wrong, I tell the story according to my feelings and to the extent of understanding.
One fine day, Georgy flew to the landing. We flew on the old workhorse of the paratroopers, the plane An-2, which even now drags the soldiers to a height so that they can descend from there by parachutes. The plane had two pilots in the cockpit, Georgy and a squad of paratroopers ready to parachute. Georgy knew the junior lieutenant well, who was supposed to jump last. The plane gained altitude, a signal came from the cockpit - it's time to jump. All parachutists, according to the instructions, fastened the pilot parachute carbines to a long cable that was extended along the entire cabin of the aircraft. They all stood along the cable and moved to the side door, through which they jumped. The paratrooper did not need to pull the ring, the parachute opened by itself, the lanyard remained in the plane, and the soldier with the opening parachute flew to the ground. The entire squad safely left the plane and descended to the ground in a state of euphoria - I can imagine the sensations of flying on a parachute. The last to jump was the junior lieutenant. Either something did not work, maybe a mistake was made during the assembly of the parachute, but the extraction cable was firmly attached to the canopy of the main parachute. When the lieutenant jumped through the open door, the dome immediately opened, filled with incoming air and remained hanging across the cockpit. The parachute slings hit Georgy, who was standing right next to the door, in the face, he fell, hit his head hard and felt blood flowing down his face.
At that moment, the fun began. The plane flies, a paratrooper hangs under it on slings, whose parachute is partially left in the cockpit. George thought:
- We need to get up, call one pilot and try to drag the guy back.
Another thought immediately flashed through:
- It will not work, it is too heavy, and the parachute behaves like an unbroken horse, striving to hit anyone who wants to get closer with slings.
But George's body refused to obey. He felt that something needed to be done, an urgent need to tell the pilots, consult with the ground and try to save the young guy, but he could not even move his hand, could not utter a sound.
The cockpit door opened, the co-pilot looked out from there, looked at George, looked at the fluttering parachute and … quietly closed the door. By the sound of the engines and the change in the angle of flight, Georgy realized that the plane had begun to land. George feverishly tried to make a decision - down there, an unconscious young guy who would just crash during landing, you need to get up, save him, but the body did not obey.
Through the open door, he saw the approaching airfield field, he thought hopefully:
- Maybe at least they will land on the grass, then the guy has a chance to escape.
But the plane entered a concrete strip and landed. All - the inevitable death of a young guy. George remained motionless, the pilots did not leave the cockpit either. Suddenly the smiling face of the junior lieutenant appeared in the doorway. The rags of a reserve parachute dangled on his chest, but he seemed pleased:
“How softly they landed me, fellow pilots, they saved me,” said the lieutenant.
At that moment, George released:
- But how could you, you good fellow, that you are alive …
During the landing, there was a high rank of inspectors at the command post. Everyone saw that a man was dangling under the plane. But no one said a word, everyone silently watched the natural development of events.
Then they began to figure out what had happened. We decided to reward the crew and George for saving a man. But, it turned out that they did not save anyone. In addition, everyone present at the flight control point behaved strangely. Nobody took any action. We decided to hush up this whole story and not reward anyone. I don’t know how this incident was described in the reports to the authorities, but the inspector managed to somehow remove this whole story from the reports. Everything ended well, but all the participants for a long time tried not to even talk about this case, no one could explain - what happened to everyone, everyone just looked at the inevitable death of a person and did nothing. They say that in the life of the army such stories are a dime a dozen, it is impossible to explain the motives and actions. This is how a person is arranged.
