1969 year. I am five years old. Garrison "Ozernoe" in Ukraine. Hot short summer nights. I fall asleep and wake up to the roar of aircraft engines. Father leaves for flights before dark, and returns late at night. I hardly see him, like most of the boys and girls in our airplane town.
Therefore, my father for me is a jacket with gold captain's stars on blue skylights of shoulder straps, which I secretly from my mother take out of the closet when she is in the store and try it on in front of the mirror, like a coat. Heavy gold medal circles ring back melodiously with every step …
I stand in front of the mirror and pull with all my boyish lungs:
And it was at the service
and in their hearts
huge sky, huge sky, huge sky - one for two.
Then there was no boy in the country who did not know the words of the song of Oscar Feltsman and Robert Rozhdestvensky. The whole country sang it.
And the whole country bowed its heads before the feat of the crew of the newest fighter-interceptor Yak-28.
Crew
Kapustin Boris Vladislavovich - captain, was born in 1931 in the village of Urupsky, Otradnensky district of Krasnodar Territory in the family of a scientist. In 1947 he graduated from a seven-year school in Rostov-on-Don, in 1951 - from the Rostov Industrial College. In 1951, he was drafted into the ranks of the Armed Forces, at the suggestion of the draft commission, he entered the Kirovbad Military Aviation School of Pilots named after V. I. Kholzunov.
After graduation, he was assigned to the North. Then he was sent to the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSVG).
Yanov Yuri Nikolaevich - senior lieutenant, was born in 1931 in Vyazma, Smolensk region in the family of a railway worker. In 1950 he graduated from secondary school N 1 in Vyazma, in 1953 - the Ryazan military automobile school, in 1954 - the Ryazan military school of navigators.
After graduation, he was sent to the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
Both in 1964 retrained in Novosibirsk on the new Yak-28 fighter, a silvery handsome man, whose swift, almost "Gothic" forms became the personification of the gambling era - the storming of space, supersonic, and the stratosphere. With a ready-made crew as part of a group of aircraft, they flew from Novosibirsk to the GSVG to the Finov airfield. There, 40 kilometers from Berlin, the 668th Bomber Aviation Regiment of the legendary 132nd Bomber Sevastopol Red Banner Aviation Division was based.
Kapustin is a pilot, Yanov is a navigator-operator. Both are top-notch fighters. Others were not taken here: the Cold War was in full swing, the world had not yet recovered from the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there were a dozen or so armies of former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition standing head-on in Germany.
Takeoff
On the morning of April 6, 1966, the link of Captain Boris Kapustin received an order to overtake the new Yak-28P to Zerbst, to the base of the 35th Fighter Aviation Regiment. It was a fabulous car! The first Soviet fighter-interceptor capable of destroying the enemy at low altitudes, and not only on catch-up, but also on a collision course. A link of interceptors "in a chain" was transported to Germany from the Union, where they were assembled at the Novosibirsk Aviation Plant.
“On April 3, they unexpectedly landed in Finovo, although there were only 15 minutes of flight left to Zerbst,” recalls Galina Andreevna Kapustina, the widow of the flight commander. - When Boris came home, he admitted: he barely held out, the engine was junk.
The planes were not released from the airfield for three days, technicians were busy with them. And only on April 6, they were allowed to fly to Zerbst. Everything about everything - from taxiing on the runway to landing - takes forty minutes. For first-class pilots, an easy ride.
The lacing on the high-altitude suits are tightened, all the zippers are fastened, helmets are put on, aircraft technicians, like caring nannies, routinely help the pilots take their seats in the cockpits, check all connections and connectors, remove covers and plugs. At 15.24 a pair of new interceptors, still smelling of varnishes and nitro-paints, flooded the airfield with the roar of engines, quickly scattered along the strip and soared into the sky.
Flight commander Captain Boris Kapustin is the leader, Captain Vladimir Podberezkin is the wingman. Navigators on board: Kapustin has senior lieutenant Yuri Yanov, Podberezkin has captain Nikolai Lobarev.
While the flight is breaking through low clouds, here is the certification that the regiment commander, Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant Colonel Koshelev gave Kapustin in November 1965, when he was promoted to the position of deputy squadron commander: "Kapustin flies on Yak-18, UTB-2, Il-28, Yak -12 and Yak-28L with R11AF2-300 engine. Total flight time - 1285 hours. In 1964 he successfully retrained on the Yak-28, quickly mastered the retraining program. Flight time on Yak-28 - 247 hours. Prepared for combat operations day and night at the established minimum weather from low, high altitudes and from the stratosphere at supersonic speed. As an instructor prepared day and night at the established minimum weather. Flying confidently, in the air is initiative …"
The navigator Yuri Yanov was also brilliantly certified: “He flies on Li-2, Il-28, Yak-28 planes., on the Yak-28 - 185 hours. In 1965 flew 125 hours, performed 30 bombings with an average score of 4, 07. He likes to fly. He is calm and initiative in the air. He is very serious and businesslike …"
We flew, made friends in the heavenly distance, they could reach the stars with their hands.
The trouble came like tears to the eyes:
once in flight, once in flight
once the engine failed in flight …
Refusal
Altitude 4000. A pair of Yak-28, breaking through the dense clouds after takeoff, glided in the icy void pierced by the blinding sun above the snow-white clouds. Direction to Zerbst! Ten minutes of flight had already passed when the leader's Yak suddenly turned sharply to the right.
He began to lose speed and fall through.
On the tape recording of the radio exchange, preserved in the materials of the investigation, a short recording remained:
Kapustin - to the slave:
- Three hundred and eighty-third, move to the right!
On command, the wingman performed a maneuver, bypassing the leader's aircraft, which was losing speed and control, and stepped forward. Yak-28 Kapustin immediately fell behind.
After a couple of seconds, Podberezkin asked:
- Three hundred and sixty-seventh, I don't see where you are?
- Three hundred and eighty-third, route on assignment! I'm coming back! - Kapustin responded.
Podberezkin continued his flight, but after a few seconds, worried about the commander, he again asked the leader:
- … sixty-seventh, how are you?
Silence.
- Three hundred and sixty-seventh, why don't you answer?..
The wingman did not know that the impossible had happened: one engine of Kapustin's plane failed, and a few moments later the second one got up. It just couldn't be! Yak-28 engines are two independent units, each located on its own plane. As the commission will establish, the reason was a "design and production defect".
Alas, this was not surprising.
Fighter-interceptors Yak-28P. Photo: reproduction / Homeland
Time
The Yak-28, which began to enter the troops in 1960, turned out to be a very capricious device and often refused. The fuselage of the aircraft was not strong enough and was deformed at full combat load, while it was impossible to close the cockpit canopy. Therefore, it was necessary to first land the crew, close the cockpit, and only then refuel the plane and hang up the ammunition. Takeoff was allowed only in the non-afterburner mode of operation of the engines - when the afterburner was turned on during takeoff, a "raznotyag" arose, inevitably leading to a catastrophe. For a long time, the flap extension system, which developed insufficient effort, caused criticism …
The haste with which the Yak-28 was created is the root cause of its accident rate. The root cause of the haste is the political situation in Europe, where there was a smell of a big war. Vicious circle. End justifies the means…
The 8th State Red Banner Scientific Testing Institute of the Air Force opposed the adoption of the Yak-28P into service. But the command of the Air Defense Forces "pushed through" the decision to launch it into series: 443 interceptors left the stocks of the Novosibirsk aircraft plant. The Yak-28P was in service for almost thirty-five years, but it was never officially adopted by our army.
Nevertheless, the plane was respected among aviators. The pilots were especially impressed by its thrust-to-weight ratio - when flying without weapons on afterburner, the fighter could climb almost vertically. The danger of flying on it was considered something natural. That is to say, the costs of the profession.
Such was the time, such were the people …
"Jump!"
The silence was deafening. The plane began to lose altitude abruptly.
Don't panic!
The psychology of a pilot is to fight to the last for the life of a winged aircraft, to save, to plant! And thereby preserve invaluable evidence of what happened. On the ground, a malfunction will be revealed, telegrams will fly to all corners of the country - check the problem node. And these are the saved lives of the pilots.
Therefore, there is no time to think about your own.
Kapustin tried to start the engines with the help of an autonomous starting system and oxygen supply - it did not work! Another attempt - failure!
A deceptively soft snow-white blanket of clouds crept inexorably towards the Yak. Beneath him is the still invisible land.
Altitude 3000. "Yak" fell into the clouds, the cockpit instantly became dark as in the twilight. Decision time. You need to jump.
According to the SPU (aircraft intercom. - Author) Kapustin gives the command to the navigator:
- Yura, jump!
But to leave the plane at this moment is to further complicate the position of the pilot. The difference between the interceptor and the bomber is that in the Yak-28, two sit in the same cockpit one after the other, when ejected, the common glazing of the cockpit flies off. Hurricane air flow will fall on Kapustin, detonation of the ejection seat squibs will disrupt the alignment of the aircraft, push it down …
Yanov instantly makes a decision:
- Commander, I'm with you! We jump at the same time!
"Yak" emerged from the clouds. There is a second shock in the cockpit. Beneath them, Berlin swung open in full breadth, from horizon to horizon …
Boris Kapustin Photo: Homeland
… his fighter and his sky. Photo: Homeland
Feat
Half a century ago, there were no modern navigation systems that determine the position of an aircraft with an accuracy of a meter. Flying over the clouds on a course in the absence of landmarks and a strong crosswind "blew" the interceptor for several kilometers to the side, to the city.
Height 2000.
And a 16-ton car with full fuel tanks crashes into busy streets.
Far ahead, the mirror of Lake Stessensee flashed. Before him is a green, shrub-covered wasteland. This is the last chance - to reach for him and try to sit down. Both pilots, using their last strength, to the stop, pull the control sticks towards themselves, taking the plane out of the dive.
And we ought to jump - the flight did not come out.
But an empty plane will crash on the city.
It will pass without leaving a living trace, and thousands of lives, and thousands of lives, and thousands of lives will be interrupted then.
Thousands of astonished Berliners threw back their heads and watched as a silvery plane with red stars on the planes falling out of the clouds, leaving a plume of dark smoke behind it, in complete silence, unexpectedly makes a hill, gaining maximum speed. And from the top of the hill with a gentle bend goes towards the Berlin outskirts.
From the story of the West Berlin worker W. Schrader:
“I worked on a 25-storey building. At 15:45 a plane flew out of the gloomy sky. I saw it at an altitude of about 1,500 meters. The car began to fall, then rose, fell again and rose again. And so three times. Obviously the pilot was trying to level the plane …"
Roofs of houses flashed under the very wing. Kapustin again commanded:
- Yura, jump!
On the aircraft of the 60s, ejection seats of the second generation were installed, which had restrictions on the height of the ejection. On the Yak-28, this limit was 150 meters. Yanov still had a chance to survive. But then Kapustin will definitely not have any chances to escape.
Yanov answered again:
- Commander, I stay!
Blocks flash by and you can't jump.
Let's make it to the forest, the friends decided.
We'll take death away from the city.
Let us perish, let us perish
let us die, but we will save the city.
The earth is advancing, filling the horizon. The last houses disappear under the fuselage - here it is, a saving wasteland. And suddenly, among the greenery - a forest of crosses and the roofs of crypts. Cemetery! You can't sit down! Now - only on the surface of the lake that opened up ahead. But in front of him is a high dam …
The last words of Kapustin remained on the tape:
- Calm down, Yura, we sit down …
In some incredible way, they jumped over the dam, almost hitting a truck driving along it. But to align the plane, to raise the nose for landing - there was neither speed nor time. Having raised a fountain of water, "Yak" buried itself with a huge spear into the murky depths.
Less than 20 minutes have passed since departure. From the beginning of the accident - about 30 seconds.
Honor and dishonor
Galina Andreevna Kapustina recalls:
"Boris did not want to leave the house that day! He could not say goodbye to me: he hugged me, kissed me. He stepped over the threshold, then came back again." Probably tired, it's time to go on vacation, "he said. lunch was in full swing for my son, whom I was expecting from school. "Well, go," I said to Boris. He nodded and left. And my throat contracted with apprehension. I rushed to the window. All five crews had already left for the airfield, and Boris was still standing near the house, shifting from foot to foot, as if he felt that he was going to meet death.
Soviet officers helplessly watch as NATO members lift the fighter from the lake. Photo: Homeland
NATO members are raising a fighter from the lake. Photo: Homeland
I learned about the death of Boris only on the second day. They were afraid to talk to me about it, I was the last to know. But I already felt that something bad had happened. The first-grader son, returning from school, lay down on the sofa, turned to the wall. I saw the officers' wives gathering together crying. And when the political officer, party organizer and regiment commander entered the apartment, I understood everything. She only asked: "Is he alive?" The commander shook his head. And I passed out."
And then it was time for the vultures.
The disaster area was the English sector of West Berlin. Within 15 minutes, the head of the British military mission, Brigadier General David Wilson, arrived here. British military police cordoned off the lake. All requests from the Soviet command to gain access to the crash site were rejected under the pretext of settling bureaucratic procedures.
And at night, a team of military divers began to dismantle the fighter's equipment. Western experts knew that a unique "Oryol-D" radar was installed on it …
The British quickly got the bodies of the pilots, but they continued to assure the Soviet representative, General Bulanov, that they were still trying to do it. Disdaining the unwritten code of officer honor, to which Soviet pilots were faithful until the last seconds of their lives.
Only at dawn the next day, the bodies of Kapustin and Yanov were demonstratively laid on the raft. But only closer to night they were handed over to the Soviet command. The British were playing for time as technicians from the Royal Aviation Institute at Farnborough studied the dismantled equipment.
Yuri Yanov (left) with his daughter Irina and Boris Kapustin. Photo: Homeland
But there were also touching human manifestations of grief. Thousands of townspeople came to bid farewell to the pilots in the eastern sector of Berlin. The British command sent a detachment of Scottish riflemen to guard the guard of honor. And they stood next to Soviet soldiers, soldiers of the National People's Army of the GDR, activists of the Union of Free German Youth. This was, perhaps, the only case that united the incompatible communities in those cold times.
Later, a memorial plaque was erected at the crash site. Memorial signs appeared in Eberswalde and seven other cities in Germany …
On April 16, 1966, the Military Council of the 24th Air Army presented Captain B. V. Kapustin for the award of the Order of the Red Banner. (posthumously) and senior lieutenant Yanov Yu. N. (posthumously) for courage and self-sacrifice in the name of saving the lives of the inhabitants of West Berlin. Soon the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was published.
An airplane arrow shot out of the sky.
And the birch forest shuddered from the explosion …
Not soon the meadows will be overgrown with grass.
And the city thought, and the city thought, And the city thought: teachings are underway.
Heaven for two
Monument to Senior Lieutenant Yu. N. Yanova at the cemetery in Vyazma. Photo: Dmitry Trenin
Yuri Yanov was buried in his homeland, in Vyazma, not far from the places where the first cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin was born.
Boris Kapustin was given the last honors in Rostov-on-Don, where his parents lived at that time. The widow had to bury her father-in-law that day. Vladislav Aleksandrovich Kapustin could not stand the grief, he loved his son very much …
- He then suffered two strokes, lay at home without getting up, - recalls Galina Andreevna Kapustina. “They were afraid to talk to him about what had happened. But he found out anyway. He only said: "Since Boris is gone, I have nothing to do here." And he died in less than a day. Father and son were buried side by side on the same day - April 12 …
Fifty years later, I am standing at the Vyazma cemetery in front of a modest obelisk made of red granite. A stingy inscription under the photo: "Senior lieutenant pilot Yanov Yuri Nikolaevich, died heroically in the line of duty." Quiet all around. It smells like spring. And I suddenly find myself humming softly, like in childhood:
In the grave lie in the midst of silence
great guys in a great country.
Looks at them with light and solemnity
huge sky, huge sky, the huge sky is one for two.
CALL EDITE PIEKHE
"In Voronezh, the navigator's wife came up on stage …"
- How did this song come to you, Edita Stanislavovna?
- Oscar Feltsman wrote the music to the verses of Robert Rozhdestvensky, who was in Berlin and learned about the feat of the pilots there. In 1967, Feltsman suggested that I be the first to perform this song. I still sing it, and it seems to me that it does not lose its relevance. Such songs are not born every day.
- That is why the audience receives it so warmly.
- Always well received. With a bang! In 1968, at the festival of youth and students in Sofia, "Giant Sky" received several awards - a gold medal and first place in a political song competition, a gold medal for performance and poetry, a silver medal for music …
- Can you remember the most memorable performance?
- In Voronezh, a woman took the stage, and the whole audience stood up, applauding. It was the wife of the navigator Yuri Yanov. The same thing happened in Rostov, where Boris Kapustin's family lived.
- Do today's youth know who the song is about?
- I don't think so … Yes, young people don't even know me. Stas's grandson is asked who Edita Piekha is. Although I have been performing for 58 years.
