A one-and-a-half-year-old girl who fell from the ramp of a Ural Airlines plane at Pulkovo airport has died. Doctors were unable to save the child. Friends of the family told the Rosbalt agency about this.
There have been no official comments from investigators about the girl’s death yet. Previously, the Investigative Committee for Transport reported that after the tragedy it would check all aircraft steps.
“After the incident at Pulkovo Airport, when the retractable stairway span collapsed, which led to two passengers falling from a height of more than three meters - a 44-year-old woman with a one-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter, the heads of investigative departments in transport were instructed to organize work to establish the circumstances of the current operation of passenger stairways at airfields within the territory of operational service, including issues of their registration with the state,” the department’s press service reports.
Let us remind you that as a result of the incident that occurred on September 28, the woman received fractures and the girl suffered a traumatic brain injury. Passengers on the Moscow–St. Petersburg flight fell while exiting the plane onto a self-propelled ramp, which collapsed due to damage to the rotating part of the platform.
The Investigative Committee opened cases under the article on negligence and under the article on the provision of services that do not meet the requirements for the safety of life or health of consumers. The accused in the case of falling passengers is one of the managers of Pulkovo Airport. In addition, the Pulkovo mechanic was placed under house arrest, and a case was opened against him under an article about poor quality repairs.
The press service of Ural Airlines does not comment on the incident, since the ramp did not belong to them, but to Pulkovo Airport.
Mother of a girl who died after falling from a ramp in Pulkovo: Doctors didn’t even come out to talk to me
The mother of a girl who died after falling from a plane at St. Petersburg Pulkovo Airport spoke about the emergency.
“I met them at the airport, stood and waited, but they still weren’t there. People were already getting off that flight, baggage claim had ended, they were gone. I already tried to call, no one answered the phone. Then my mother called me and said that they were at the first aid station. I asked what happened, they told me that they fell. I thought they had fallen downstairs and tripped on the steps. But when I arrived at the first aid station, I realized that they had fallen from above,” says Daria Petrova.
According to the mother, within an hour after the fall, the child was taken to the hospital.
“People who were on this board wrote to me. They said that when they went down, the ladder was already wobbly,” the parent noted.
According to Petrova, despite complaints from passengers, the faulty ladder was not replaced, and passengers were stopped from leaving only after the accident.
“Mom was holding her in her arms, she had a bag on her other hand. She stepped off the side of the plane with one foot and immediately fell,” the mother added.
“The doctors tried to start the heart for half an hour, but nothing worked. She was completely under medical care for 17 days. She herself couldn’t breathe from the first day,” she says.
Daria Petrova blames Pulkovo employees for the death of the child.
Let us remind you that the incident with a woman and child falling from a ramp in Pulkovo occurred on September 28. Based on this fact, a criminal case was initiated under the article “Negligence”. Investigators detained the head of the mechanical works department, who was responsible for carrying out repeated repairs to the ladder. According to the investigation, he could have accepted work of inadequate quality.
Mother reported details of the death of a girl who fell from a ladder in Pulkovo
A one-and-a-half-year-old girl who fell from a plane at Pulkovo Airport died of cardiac arrest. Her mother told REN TV about this.
“Yesterday the child’s heart stopped. This was already the fourth stop in a day. By that time, the child had already suffered three clinical deaths. Doctors were no longer able to start a heart. They tried to start it for half an hour, but couldn’t,” the woman said.
Early in the morning, Rosbalt reported the death of the child, citing relatives.
The girl had been in intensive care since September 28 with a traumatic brain injury. Doctors assessed her condition as serious.
For more than two weeks, doctors fought for the life of a little girl who fell from the ramp at Pulkovo Airport. The forecasts were disappointing - during this time the child suffered three clinical deaths - but doctors tried to do the impossible. No miracle happened. 17 days after the incident, the baby’s heart stopped forever. Vera's mother ( name changed - editor's note.) believes that airport employees are to blame for the death of her girl. The woman declares: she will ensure that these people are punished.
Fall from the ladder
On the evening of September 28, a St. Petersburg woman Daria Petrova I met my mother and 1.5-year-old daughter in Pulkovo: they were supposed to return from Moscow. The plane had already landed, and one by one the passengers came out to meet the greeters, but Maria Leonidovna and Verochka were still not there. Daria started calling her mother, but she didn’t answer the phone.
Finally, the woman called back. She told her daughter that she was at the first-aid post with her granddaughter. “I asked what happened, they told me that they fell,” Daria told REN TV. “I thought they fell downstairs and tripped on the steps.” But when I got to the first aid station, I realized that they had fallen from above.”
At the first aid station, Daria learned that the Ural Airlines airbus had landed in Pulkovo, and a ramp had been docked to it. As passengers were leaving the plane, part of the ramp came off. A 44-year-old woman and her 1.5-year-old granddaughter fell to the ground from a height of three meters. As other passengers would later tell Petrova, the gangway began to sway greatly as soon as people stepped on it. It was scary to go. And the fears turned out to be unfounded.
17 days of struggle
The victims were taken to the hospital. The woman was diagnosed with broken legs, two ribs and a concussion. The girl's condition was serious: bruises of the heart, lungs, liver, and traumatic brain injury. The child was placed in intensive care and put into an artificial coma. For almost three weeks, doctors fought for the baby’s life, but Verochka was no longer destined to regain consciousness. In 17 days, the baby suffered three clinical deaths. When the girl’s heart stopped again, it was no longer possible to start it. “They tried to start it for half an hour, but couldn’t,” says Daria. - Nothing succeeded".
The inconsolable mother believes that the airport staff, who did not monitor the condition of the equipment, are solely to blame for the incident. The woman intends to ensure that all people involved in the death of her daughter receive the punishment they deserve.
There have been no official comments regarding the girl’s death yet. Criminal cases have been initiated under articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Poor quality repairs” Vehicle or other transport equipment”, “Provision of services that do not meet the requirements for the safety of life or health of consumers” and “Negligence resulting in negligence in causing serious harm to human health”. Whether the last point will be reclassified from “serious harm to health” to “death” is still unknown.
Nobody noticed the defect
Representatives of the Investigative Committee interrogated Pulkovo employees who carried out maintenance on the ladder, and also studied all technical documentation. It turned out that the rotating part of the platform of the old ladder had been repaired many times already - it turns out that the work was not carried out properly. In addition, the malfunction should have been identified during the daily inspection of the equipment. However, no one noticed the defect.
As a result of the inspection, the head of the mechanical works section of the special transport service at Pulkovo Airport, who was responsible for repairing the ramp, was detained. The man has already confessed, and the issue of choosing a preventive measure for him will be decided in the near future.
Pulkovo stated that all old equipment at the airport will be replaced as quickly as possible, but exactly when this will happen is unknown, everything depends on supplies.
“It is obvious to me that the airport employees were simply inattentive to their work - they were tired, overlooked, did not notice the defect,” notes an independent expert, aviation mechanic Alexey Korostylev. - Not a single detail should be overlooked at the airport. And so, the child was killed. This could have been avoided if everyone had done their job properly. That's all".
A woman and her little granddaughter were seriously injured due to a partial collapse of the plane's ramp. Coming out of the liner, they fell from a three-meter height directly onto the concrete surface.
The faulty gangway is now literally being dismantled into pieces - experts are trying to understand why the structure, capable of supporting a weight of hundreds of kilograms, broke the night before right under the feet of two passengers. Amateur footage taken a couple of minutes after the incident shows the floor adjacent to the side of the plane. It literally folded in half.
“As passengers exited the plane, part of the ladder came off. As a result, a woman born in 1973 and her one and a half year old child fell to the ground. Both were injured and were hospitalized,” said Maria Dobrynina, senior assistant to the head of the North-Western Investigative Directorate for Transport of the RF Investigative Committee.
Maria Kobyletskaya and her granddaughter Varya were returning to St. Petersburg after a vacation on the Black Sea. As she exited the plane, the woman held the little girl in her arms. Several dozen passengers safely descended the ladder in front of them. But under Maria the floor suddenly collapsed.
“The patient was admitted to our institution two hours after receiving the injury in a condition of moderate severity, her condition was assessed as stable. Our prognosis is that treatment is required for at least two weeks. She has a head injury, a chest injury, which is regarded as mild, and the main injury is to the extremities,” said Alexander Naydenov, deputy chief physician for surgery at City Hospital No. 26 of St. Petersburg.
One-year-old Varya fell from a three-meter height and hit her head. The doctors fought for her life all night; even her mother was not allowed into the room.
“I met them at the airport. Disembarkation has already ended, baggage claim too, and nothing concrete. I waited and waited for them, but they weren’t there. I started calling, no one answered the phone. Then my mother called back and explained everything to me. She said that they were at the first-aid post, I ran to the first-aid post,” said the mother of the injured girl, Daria Petrova.
The girl is in intensive care. The doctor was forced to put her into an artificial coma.
“She has an open head injury, a brain contusion, multiple fractures, a skull and a hematoma, for which she underwent surgery. Contusion of the lungs, heart, liver, shock,” said the chief doctor of the children’s city hospital No. 5 named after. N.F. Filatova Lyudmila Isankina.
A self-propelled passenger ladder is considered a completely safe device. Docking is performed by the driver, partially under automatic control. Incidents with them have happened in world practice. In Pulkovo in 2011, a six-year-old boy stepped into the gap between the side of the plane and the ramp. Then it ended with bruises.
What caused the incident will now be investigated by the investigation. A criminal case has been opened. Pulkovo Airport has its own commission. Engineers already know which specific part was defective. It remains to be established whether this was a manufacturing defect or negligence in maintenance ladder
“The mounting axis of the turntable of the car ramp was destroyed. There are two types of airstrips used at the airport. In any case, everyone today - both types - have passed the appropriate test. But the ladders of the type that directly broke down are not in use today,” said Denis Pavshinsky, director for interaction with government authorities and public relations at Pulkovo.
Today at Pulkovo they are conducting additional safety training for staff. They promise to provide all necessary assistance to the victims, and to punish the perpetrators.
© Photo by the press service of the North-Western Transport Prosecutor's Office
“Pulkovo: chaos reigns at the airport. This is what the ship's commander said at the 40th minute of waiting for the gangway. “After the recent tragedy with a girl who fell from the ladder...,” this entry appeared on Thursday evening in the Live Journal of Deacon Andrei Kuraev.
Similar messages began to multiply on social networks like mushrooms after rain: “An hour of unsuccessful showdowns, nerves, running around. And, spitting on the chaos on the part of the Pulkovo airport workers, we, having bought new tickets, still fly home. Tired, but not defeated”, “These are semantic hallucinations. How to unsee this? It’s not even trash...”
Judging by the online scoreboard, many flights were delayed at night, and some took off late. The prosecutor's office has already become interested in this story. At Air Gate LLC Northern capital» ( Management Company airport) the next day, that indeed 11 flights were delayed due to the fact that after the tragedy, fewer self-propelled ramps were used at the airport. However, they noted that over 20 more flights were delayed for other reasons - due to late arrival aircraft, bad weather conditions, technical problems.
“In this case, all interested parties should write complaints to the regulatory authorities: Rospotrebnadzor, the prosecutor’s office. Flights are delayed at Pulkovo, citing safety reasons. But they create a situation with the opposite effect - after all, there are many passengers, including those with children. What kind of security are we talking about if this situation has a detrimental effect on their health?” — says lawyer Andrei Tyndik.
People started talking about safety at Pulkovo after the tragedy that occurred on September 28. Then, under the grandmother, who was carrying her granddaughter in her arms, part of the platform of the self-propelled ladder collapsed. As a result, passengers fell from a height of more than three meters. The victims were taken to the hospital. The grandmother received fractures and after some time she was transferred to outpatient treatment. Recovery will take at least two months. Doctors fought for the girl’s life for two weeks. They did everything possible to save the child. But on October 14, the girl died.
The photographs published on the website of the North-Western Prosecutor's Office for Transport show that the metal part of the ill-fated ladder is literally hanging on two thin cables. In the most prominent place of the structure there is the inscription “Pulkovo Airport”.
The North-Western Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for Transport opened a criminal case under paragraph 2 of Art. 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (provision of services that do not meet the requirements for the safety of life or health of consumers, if this act negligently resulted in the infliction of serious harm to human health). Later, two suspects from among the employees of Northern Capital Gateway LLC (Pulkovo management company) were detained: Valentin Chernaenko and Alexander Kozelsky. Kozelsky, who was responsible for repairing a faulty passenger ramp, was placed under house arrest by the court. But Chernaenko was released, refusing to allow investigators to place him in custody.
In the press service " Air gate Northern Capital" reported that airport representatives contacted the relatives and provided them with financial assistance, and also offered to help with organizing the funeral. Friends of the family confirmed that money was transferred to the girl’s mother when the child was in intensive care. In addition, according to the airport representative, a personal apology was made to the family.
After the incident, the airport began its internal investigation. According to the agency's interlocutor, all ladders of a design similar to those involved in the tragedy on September 28 have been temporarily taken out of service. They will be put into operation after an additional check of their technical condition.
At the same time, the airport emphasized that the information that “single delays” on October 19 were associated with self-propelled ramps is unreliable. According to the press service air harbor, in connection with the investigation, 11 ladders of the same configuration were taken out of service to assess their technical condition. Some of them, after confirmation of safety, were returned to work; the rest are still being checked.
This explanation did not satisfy everyone. “The airport is operating normally and does not blush even because of the ‘incident’,” this comment appeared in the Pulkovo group on the social network.
Meanwhile, the Investigative Committee is inspecting airstairs at other airports in the Northwestern Federal District. And already in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Syktyvkar, Yaroslavl and Pskov.
According to the Air Code of the Russian Federation, the airline bears responsibility for the passenger while he is on the territory of the airfield. “Article 117 of the Air Code of the Russian Federation establishes provisions on the liability of the carrier for harm caused to the life or health of an aircraft passenger. The carrier's liability applies at all times air transportation. In this case, air transportation means the period from the moment the passenger of the aircraft undergoes pre-flight inspection for boarding the aircraft and until the moment when the passenger of the aircraft, under the supervision of authorized persons of the carrier, leaves the airfield. Thus, the presence of a passenger on the ramp falls under the concept of air transportation, therefore, the airline will compensate for the damage to the victims,” emphasized lawyer Vladimir Starinsky.
However, it is worth noting that carriers enter into agreements with airports for ground handling. These documents contain a list of services provided, for example, boarding, baggage transportation, meals, etc. In this case, the boarding ramp belongs to Pulkovo Airport (which the latter does not hide).
Here we can recall the tragedy of 2014, when a Falcon-50 plane collided with a snowplow at Vnukovo and caught fire. As a result, the crew and passenger, the president of the Total oil company, Christophe de Margerie, died. Then the airport employees were found guilty. In particular, the driver of the snowplow Vladimir Martynenko and the engineer Vladimir Ledenev were sentenced to 4 and 3 years in prison. However, both convicts were released from punishment under an amnesty with their criminal records expunged.
In the case of the tragedy at Pulkovo, all that remains is to wait for the court’s decision.
Nikita Kochetov
The one-and-a-half-year-old child underwent surgery, but his life could not be saved. Who is to blame for what happened and what will be the compensation for the relatives of the deceased?
A girl who fell from an airplane at Pulkovo has died. This was reported by TASS with reference to the Health Committee of the St. Petersburg Administration. The one-and-a-half-year-old child underwent surgery; the girl was in intensive care in serious condition.
The incident occurred on September 28. The ramp collapsed as passengers were disembarking the plane. A woman born in 1973 and her granddaughter fell from a height of three meters. They were hospitalized. As Fontanka reported, the woman was diagnosed with a broken leg, and the girl received a head injury.
A criminal case was initiated, and the head of the mechanical work service for Pulkovo special transport and another airport employee were detained. Who is responsible for the tragedy and what can relatives count on? dead girl?
Alexander Zabeydalawyer, managing partner of the law firm "Zabeyda and Partners"“The question of who is to blame in this case will depend on the results of the investigation. The most important thing in this case is to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between the actions taken and the consequences that occurred. I will look at this situation with sadness if it develops according to the scenario of the investigation into the disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya State District Power Plant, where investigators accused a group of people of committing a careless crime. Or the terrorist attack at Domodedovo, when the owner of the airport was charged with the consequences of the terrorist attack. Neither one nor the other design complied with Russian law. The same can happen in this situation. Life in Russia in the prism of judicial practice today is valued very little; the average amount of compensation, according to this practice, for careless causing of death ranges from 300 thousand to 1.5 million rubles. But a situation like in the case of Domodedovo is possible. After all, all crimes related to minors are under special control of the chairman of the Investigative Committee. And if he makes a statement in the press that the compensation should be large and indicates its size, most likely, the airport will be forced to pay it out of court in order to avoid unjustifiably expanding the circle of suspects.”
After this incident, Pulkovo Airport announced that an extraordinary purchase of ladders would be carried out as soon as possible. The North-Western Investigation Department initiated an inspection of the airstrips at the airfields of cities included in the corresponding federal district.
