IN THE SKY NO ACCIDENT
Boris Vorobyov
Senior Inspector of the pilot of the Tajik civil aviation, Hero of Socialist Labor
Letter to Boris Mikhailovich Vorobiev, a senior inspector-pilot of the Tajik civil aviation
... We had to meet six months after publication of the decree. Imagine how many reporters have visited you during this time. After all, no ordinary event: the first Hero of Socialist Labor of Tajikistan aviators! Maybe you in my life did not have to respond immediately to a lot of questions like these days, though you have experienced newspapermen before-they were flying with you, and interviewed on the ground.
You know, Boris, something all of you disappointed correspondents. They were waiting for more from you. They wanted to extract such that the reader gasp. Something out of the ordinary, extraordinary, amazing. It's understandable you're a pilot, your whole life is connected with the sky, everyone your flight is dipping into the elements of a dizzy height and furious pace. Well, someone at work, but the pilot, to search for acute situations, exciting stories, exclusive of its moments of tension! Yes, no reader will not read an essay to the end, if you understand what a hero is nothing in the sky did not happen. Stories about the incident, so we wanted to hear from you, and difficult incidents and emergencies. One of the pilots themselves also noticed that if there were no aircraft emergency, the halo occupation would be the pilot pretty dull.
At the time I've seen imprinted on the film operation to rescue climbers in distress. Remove them from the heights it was only possible by helicopter. On the screen, blinding snow fields and the dark figures of people. They were set in motion when hung over the heads of helicopters, rushed to meet her. And then the incredible happened. In front of the helicopter suddenly lurched climbers, and turned over, crashed into the snow. I was shocked by what he saw, as if he lived through it all. The man with the camera accidentally photographed a rare event-plane crash ... Since then, it took many years, staff still strongly stand in front of me, but what is interesting, except for the burst of emotion, they are about anything I did not say. It feels like watching a natural phenomenon, landslide, flood or lightning strike a tree. So the event itself, no matter how impressive it was, for a journalist to a small discovery. And yet ...
Yes, Boris, like action-stories related to you, but trying to find out something "is" to nothing lead. Your comrades said: "I do not remember anything," or even joking: "And nothing will happen." Creeping suspicion that pilots are not taken by anyone to devote exclusively to the flight scenes. And just looking at your papers flying, it was possible to make a discovery: the search for silly, you can not find what is not, the pilot-high grade and should not be a state of emergency.
Three simple things: thirty-five years in aviation, flying time of about twenty thousand hours and, most importantly, no flight accidents. All these facts were mentioned in the award presentation. Thought: how much more important in your case not to have accidents. So, it is emphasized that the document itself, where there are your exceptional service! Nothing happened, that's a feat. It '... Flew about twenty thousand hours ... "This short phrase stands simply for more than two years of life spent in the air pilot. It is difficult to understand a person, not only dedicated to the life of aviation can not imagine how the pilot becomes a bird.
Bird? Yes, exactly. After all, with a bird in flight, nothing ever happens. It is in his element, she was born to fly, and everything in it is intended for flight. It turns out that people also can live such a life, and so "mold" itself, the sky is no longer for them to be a stranger.
***
A native of the village you are from Big Tops of Penza. Went hungry in 1922, and the addition of a large peasant family of another mouth could hardly have been a joyous occasion. You were the twelfth child, and famine forced the family later moving to a distant Tajikistan. Here you have completed the ten-year and immediately went into the army. War broke out. The boys quickly became the forty first men. One day they parted with their youthful dreams and plans. Where to go to learn how to choose a profession, these concerns adolescent years of peace, for you have ceased to exist. Your generation did not choose. Determined the fate of each country. You were sent to military school of aviation mechanics.
We often hear that as a child people interested in their future profession. In his early passions, inclinations, dreams of ripening grain business, which he subsequently devoted his entire life. Did you, Boris, at the time of childhood and youth, something that has even remotely related to aviation? We talked about it for a long time. You have found one letter, and became very animated, telling his story. Curiously, among other things, a letter. On the envelope: "Personally. Urgent. Pilot-inspector Boris Mikhailovich Vorobiev. " By letter of tenth grade from a distant mountain village. No, it's about anything else does not say that she lives far away from big cities and, perhaps, never been on the district center. Nozigul, so it seems her name is quite a modern girl, and you introduced her magazine "Agitator of Tajikistan." I saw your picture there and decided to ask for advice. For several years, she cherishes the dream of becoming pilots. Shared with the teacher, he first laughed Tajik girl, and suddenly the aviator? But really strong girl, once ventured to ask a stranger. "Among the graduates of our school, 'she wrote,' there are engineers and livestock specialists, doctors, teachers, but there is no pilot ... I want to always be with the aircraft. Advise me what to do? "
Not every life throws these puzzles. Recommend means to take some responsibility for others' fate. In principle, we can not directly answer. You can, for example, provide the address of any institution that is relevant to aviation and at the same time know that there is hardly a girl to take. But you have carefully and once in a fatherly wise to react to the request Goryanka naive. Come, they say, after school in Dushanbe go to college, and the air force will not go away from you: you can join the flying club. For a more convincing example referred to by Galina Smagina, commander Yak-40. Nozigul probably heard about Dushanbe pilots. Only that all the newspapers wrote about the country's female crew, set to the IL-62M just two world records. On-board engineer for this flight was Galina Smagina.
It is difficult to guess how the rest of life Nozigul, but when it comes to aviation, it will be about her said that she dreamed of becoming pilots, and that the prominent role played in her life known in the country pilot. You yourself, Boris, even had not thought about the sky, until a random turn in my life has brought you to the aircraft. Here it is: "I thought, what's next medical examination will not do, I was such a weakling, and suddenly-fit" ... But do not you pleased direction to the school of aviation mechanics. Someone remarked scornfully that this same training tractor drivers, and you're worried: after all, behind a ten-year, so it's not too easy? Only familiarity with the aircraft has awakened something like interest. Then, affection, then love, reckless, demanding. You were woman man.
Do not you have searched for ways to aviation and aircraft searched and found you. Tuck you in those years, another thing, you would have surrendered to him completely, without reservations. Would, for example, a good doctor. By the way, you're going, and after school to enroll in medical school. But it will take thirty-five years, and will state: "I do not regret that he was in aviation. I do not know of another such profession, where a man was revealed so fully. "
But as they say, is not the place makes the man. Now you tell me a story about the failed flight destiny. On a young pilot. You said: "The difficult case."
He just did to you in the Tajik Civil Aviation Authority. Three times, "was driven" to the Dushanbe-Shaartuz on the easiest route. Notice: the flies seem to be good, and knows aerobatics, but some inexplicable insecurity constrains him. And no one can figure out what was wrong. Then sit down with him on the plane you are. Everything went fine, and suddenly at the end of the voyage he had "lost" Shaartuz. What has happened is a complete mystery. A few days later, accidentally launching a youth newspaper, you see a selection of his poems. Man, it turns out, writes poetry! You advised him once and make a choice: either to heaven or poetry. The guy left the aircraft.
You know, Boris, I was hurt for the guy. Why did answer it, that poets can not be pilots? I was ready to accuse you of callousness, limitation and still knows what sins. That same evening, a friend went to the pilot and put him with his comments, the whole story. After listening, he said: "Remember, compose poems on the ground, not in the sky. There, you are responsible for the lives of people. " Not words but the tone in which they were spoken, opened the something very important, perhaps, the most important thing in your profession. To fly, we must first learn to feel behind her passenger. The crew is the only guarantee of its security, and it is more complete, more reliable than the pilot. Reliability of this measure-flight professionalism. That is why in aviation technology from the all-to-people is valued higher, the greater margin of safety.
Of course, there are cases when it comes to risk. But this is a deliberate risk, which are, realizing that the other way. During the war, each flight would be the last, and you, Boris, many times raised their ON-2 in such a flight. Evidence of this seven-military awards, the Polish "Silver Cross".
Well, in time of peace? You said no need to fly safely. Then how to understand the flight Sarez? Did you or anyone else were confident that all will go well?
I have been to those places. Mountain lake in the heart of the Pamirs, a chaotic conglomeration of rock, stone kingdom razvoroshennogo earthquake. There's still pristine and quiet of the mountains breaks the deafening roar, descend yet settled the coast. Tens of kilometers - not a soul, and only very tiny structures Usoi Irhtskoy weather.
Who does not make much of a problem to get a helicopter on the Lake Sarez. But then in the country there were no helicopters. From the radio alarm went wintering. Save the life of the chief weather could only one who dared to land the plane on the fragile ice of the lake. You asked: "withstand?" And heard the mere word of caution: "Be careful, do not fail." All that day took shape not in the best manner. Arrived in Khorog, and there was no snow, and had to bring their car in to rearrange the plane with the wheels on the skis. At the lake you have landed the crew: light can be closer to getting to the weather. We took the patient and, without delay, turned back. You shouted, waving a warning: do not stop, they say, Katie next. Because the engine noise you heard, gray, cracked ice, is not seen under the plane scattered in all directions treacherous cracks.
Here you have no risk! And in the days Haitskoy tragedy? Then the entire country was tense, to help earthquake victims. Air Force immediately began rescue those in trouble. Planes sat on the ground still trembling, ready vspuchitsya new destructive wave. "The commander of the detachment received a reprimand for me when I flew last month two hundred fifty hours." You mentioned this in passing. Yes, probably, a reprimand is justified: it must be, it is also the risk for ten hours a day spend in the air. But you survived, you were flying, and it would be hard you do not understand. In the most difficult situations the last word the pilot. It is in such cases, check its "safety margin".
***
Many believe that the sky in Tajikistan, a paradise for aviation. You listen to at times all-weather rain, thunderstorms, and here almost all summer not a single cloud, the sun melts. You just smiled and politely reminded that just as the sky and this is the route Dushanbe-Khorog, and it is known as the hardest in the country, if not the world. You fly through the canyon over the Panj, a narrow corridor to the left and right-pressed by a rock. And God forbid, even a tiny puff meet that inadvertently crawled out of the mountain maze and go unnoticed by forecasters. He is not circled, not razverneshsya. Technique, and she feels it does not matter here. Motor chokes from the rarefied air of high mountains, from the summer heat of the south. And if zaduet dust storm ... This now turns out, our sky. Far from sugar, when you look at it from the cockpit.
Of course, who does not know that the pilot has to be bold, decisive, able to make decisions quickly, this is the stereotype. You did not try to deny it, but your scale of values in the first place was something else, something much more mundane.
- What should a pilot?-You asked again. - First of all, health.
- It certainly need health to everyone.
- We have special requirements. A little what-not allow to fly. I've been many years in aviation, as well as the medical board to go - excited. I love to read, write out a dozen newspapers and magazines, but would sit with a book an hour or two and already feel anxiety: his eyes were not weak ... For us, health is everything.
For the health of the aviation truly professional approach. For example, the same vision: often meet people's short-sighted, but it's hard to imagine a pilot with glasses ... Apparently, one must live in a special mode for the sake of Specialty Health, in order not to lose the opportunity to fly. Job requires a pilot. And continuous self. And the study, practice skills. Otherwise, it is impossible. You go on vacation and loses shape. Then he has to catch up.
You, Boris, a senior pilot inspector. Through your hands, as they say, is a lot of young pilots. That was the case: a young pilot, as he fought no, no vehicle was given to planting. Everything does seem to be right and put the Yak-40 on three points can not be. "I decided to watch from the sidelines. It turns out that landing does not assume the helm, and he goes on the steering wheel. Not just this, and discover. I told him, went it. "
Here's another bar.
- You know, you said, the pilot-generated "slide" view. " Walking down the street and nobody notices, sees only the prospect of ... With me was such a case. I just got married. His wife, a student at medical school, she met me in town. "Here, says her friends, is my husband." And my husband, that is, I walking by, well, that was hailed ...
And the study, and endless training, and a special mode of life, and the same worked out over the years, "rolling eyes"-it was a story about how people in the aviation and aviation, about how the pilot is a pilot. To fly, and fly well, with a reserve of strength, training needs, we need a school, need a work up a sweat.
***
After high school ... you were going to enroll in medical school. And though fate had decided otherwise, in the house everyone talks about that medicine. In the medical field working wife, Valentina Pavlovna, the doctor was the eldest daughter Ludmila. But of all the medical home once you have one honorary title of "Excellent Health". In the corners of the country which only you have not flown on orders sanaviatsii where just not scheduled for a landing site with a red cross. Shepherds and meteorologists, mountaineers and geologists remember the doctor who saved their lives, but remember they are the pilot, who found them there, where no vehicles can not reach ....
In mountainous country, protected from the "big world" mighty, impassable mountain ranges, the Soviet government asserted itself especially road construction. Serpentines highways Perevi today slopes of the mountains and passes. But even today in many villages only accessible by air. And if the people of Kalai-Khumbu, Rushan, Sagirdashta, Ishkashim, Lyahsha not make their way, as happened, for months on narrow trails, and within minutes are in Dushanbe, then these are to some extent obliged to you. You opened the flights to the most mountainous district centers of the Pamirs and Karategin and thus fit line by line in a long history of aviation in Tajikistan ... And because the title of Honored worker of transport of the Tajik SSR, which you won, not just an honor, and honor twice in the republic, which for centuries had a reputation for exceptional off-road edge.
Maybe I do not know about all your titles and distinctions, I was told about them, you do not others. You even kept silent about what had been elected deputy secretary of the party bureau, said not a word that you wrote a lot of theoretical studies and recommendations that dozens of commanders airships consider themselves your students.
You are a persistent and in various forms have developed the same idea: the pilot can not be content with what he knows and what they taught, they need without any break to learn, train, keep in shape. "As I know myself. He started with the PO-2, and now the TU-154 in these days no matter where you turn your electronics. The flights take place in very difficult circumstances. To which I would pass if it were not studied. " Anyway, this is how you formulate what it means to give aircraft thirty-five years of life and swoop twenty thousand hours. No flight accidents!
