Topics: Parenting, Russia, Travel, World News
Warning: This article contains graphic description and video which some readers may find distressing
A black box recording revealed the horrifying moment an aircraft lost control and crashed after a pilot allowed their kids in the cockpit.
In March 1994, relief pilot Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky was one of three pilots on a flight traveling from Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow, Russia, to Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong, China.
However, it wasn't just the three pilots who ended up in the cockpit, but Yaroslav's two children too.
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The Russian airline Aeroflot - Flight 593 - had 63 passengers, nine flight attendants, and three pilots on board.
Two of those on board the flight were Yaroslav's two teenage children - 12-year-old Yana and 16-year-old Eldar.
The pair ended up coming inside the cockpit to visit their dad, who then decided to let them play with the aircraft's controls while the plane was on autopilot.
The family's interaction was caught on audio recording by the plane's black box, with Yana being heard complaining to her dad, before he tells her: "Don't run there, or they'll fire us."
Despite autopilot being turned on, meaning the plane couldn't be controlled by the children, when it was Eldar's go to have a play, he ended up switching off autopilot for around 30 seconds, having pushed the controls too hard.
In this time, the teenager ended up in control of the aircraft's movements which would lead to a catastrophic tragedy.
When the plane started to veer right and exit the flight path, Eldar realised something was wrong.
Within seconds, the three pilots on board noticed too, but by that point, the aircraft had already swerved at almost a 90-degree angle - a move that the Airbus A310 aircraft can't handle.
The plane started to descend rapidly, before stalling and automatically switching into a dive to recover itself.
Eventually, the pilots managed to regain control and pull the plane out of the dive but misjudged the force, causing the aircraft to stall again.
"Go to the back! Go to the back, Eldar!" Yaroslav can be heard yelling as the pilots lose control. "You see the danger, don't you?"
As all three pilots try desperately to adjust the mistake and get the aircraft back on track, with Yaroslav telling his kids: "Get out now! All is normal."
That's when the recording suddenly cuts out.
The pilots managed to recover the spinning aircraft, but by that point, it had lost too much altitude and crashed into the Kuznetsk Alatau mountain range, tragically killing everyone onboard.
After the crash, investigations found no evidence of technical failure, and that the crash was most likely caused by the children being allowed to take control of the flight.
Perhaps the saddest discovery made was that if the three pilots onboard had left the recovery up to the autopilot, rather than attempting to fix the problem manually, the issue would have resolved itself and all the passengers would have survived.
An Aeroflot spokesperson said at the time that it had tightened cockpit discipline following the incident.
