As the plane spiraled downward, panic filled the cockpit. “Go to the back, Eldar! You see the danger, don’t you?” Yaroslav shouted. He tried to protect his children and calm them: “Get out now! All is normal.” But it wasn’t. The plane rapidly lost altitude and crashed into Russia’s Kuznetsk Alatau mountains.
Black box recordings revealed the pilots’ desperate final efforts to save the flight. All 70 lives—crew and passengers—were lost.
Investigators found no mechanical failures. The crash was ruled human error. The tragic finding: had the autopilot stayed on, the plane likely would’ve corrected itself, and everyone might have survived.
