It was Friday evening. We had finished work, the weekend was ahead, and our thoughts were only on what we would do over those two days. Everything changed when a pair of duty fighters urgently took to the air, and an order was broadcast over the loudspeaker for four more jets to fire up their engines and stand by for takeoff. It was a clear sign that something serious was happening, and we could say goodbye to our weekend plans.
While we were exchanging glances, trying to figure out what was going on, an order came to grab our weapons and take our positions in the vehicles. Soon we learned the reason behind all the commotion: terrorists had hijacked a plane.
It was about to land at Tbilisi Airport, and our task was to seal off the area around the runway. We were the closest to the airport, our airbase was just ten kilometers away. As someone said, “Guys, it’s on you now.”
The airliner landed half an hour after we had taken up our positions. Nobody really knew what to do. It was a new situation for everyone. The two regiments stationed at the airbase did have the trained security battalions, but the rest of us were just technical staff. And while the officers at least had some idea, the low-ranking soldiers, who were conscripts, had no clue.
After all, they were just kids who had only recently graduated from school and been pulled away from the comfort of their homes, and the care of their parents. They weren’t ready for this. Besides, the guys drafted into the air force were usually smart and tech-savvy, typical city slickers, not the type to deal with a situation like this.
So, that's how it was there. I had a small squad under my command, made up of those nerds from my technical crew and some guys from god knows what units. It was the same for the other officers. Everybody was on edge. And that worried me the most. I was afraid that if things escalated, these boys might lose their nerve and start shooting in all directions, not having a clue what they were doing. And since I was standing in front of them, the chance of catching a whole mag in the back was definitely not zero.
I remember my grandmother's brother, the only one among our grandparents' relatives who came back alive from World War II. He once told me how terrifying it was to lead a squad into an attack, how almost impossible it was to force yourself out of the trench under a hail of bullets, and run forward, not knowing if anyone had followed. But the worst of all, he said, was the thought of being hit by your own men, by those running behind you, firing blindly at the enemy, not really seeing where their bullets were flying. I often recalled his words later, during my own service, finally understanding, at that moment, what he meant.
Back then, while staying in the cordon, I didn’t know that one of the passengers on the hijacked plane was someone I knew quite well. His name was Alexey. He also served at our airbase and was the driver of the air-conditioning truck.
Every morning, another fighter was rolled into my hangar. The crew hooked up the cables, and I got to do my magic on the electronics. Part of the routine involved the air-conditioning truck, which pulled in to connect its hose to the jet and cool the aircraft’s equipment.
Sometimes, there was nothing to do but sit and wait, passing the time in conversation. During those times, it was usually me, my technical crew, and Alexey. There was a kind of bond between us. We were all conscripts, just waiting for our two years of service to pass. The only difference was my age and the fact that I served as an officer, while they were low-ranking soldiers. Not exactly the same pack, but we had a lot in common.
That day, November 18, 1983, Alexey was on his way home. His service was finally over. And so it happened that he was flying on the very plane that was taken by terrorists.
The decision to hijack the airliner and fly to Turkey was made by a group of seven people, all from influential local families. It wasn’t an attempt to escape the Soviet Union. Each of them had traveled abroad before and could easily do so again. Their plan was different. They wanted to escape with a big bang, to become heroes in the eyes of the Americans. They wanted to be seen as those who had fought their way out of Soviet hell. In return, they expected to be greeted with honors, immediately granted American citizenship, and provided for the rest of their lives. That was their grand plan.
Their inspiration came from the Brazinskas, a father-and-son duo who hijacked a civilian plane to Turkey in 1970, killing a flight attendant and seriously wounding several crew members and passengers in the process. Despite that, they were welcomed as heroes in America and enjoyed all the privileges that came with it. So why not try the same, if it had worked before?
They boarded the plane in Tbilisi, managing to smuggle aboard weapons, including grenades. The flight was scheduled to Leningrad, with a layover in Batumi, a resort city near the Turkish border. Their plan was to seize control of the plane before it landed there, and force the crew to fly to Turkey, which was only a few minutes away by air.
But man proposes, and God disposes. Nothing went as planned. The weather in Batumi was so bad that landing there was too dangerous, and the plane had to turn back toward Tbilisi. The terrorists didn’t know that. Based on the expected landing time in Batumi, they began their hijacking operation. But it didn't unfold as they had imagined.
When they burst into the cockpit, the crew refused to obey them. Georgians are known for their pride and short temper, so instead of the simple “do what I say” scenario, a shootout broke out in true Wild West fashion. As a result, the flight engineer was killed and another crew member wounded. The navigator, whom the hijackers hadn’t noticed at first, seriously wounded two of them and managed to barricade the cockpit door.
To disorient the hijackers and disrupt their next moves, the crew rocked the plane from side to side throughout the flight to Tbilisi. Later, it was estimated that they had exceeded the aircraft’s structural limits by more than three times. But the plane held.
During landing, the flight attendants managed to open an emergency exit in an attempt to escape. One of them succeeded in jumping onto the runway as the plane slowed down, breaking her legs and injuring her spine. The other wasn’t so lucky; she was killed by the terrorists while trying to flee. By chance, Alexey was sitting near the open hatch. After the plane stopped, he slipped out onto the wing, jumped to the ground, and ran away.
For some stupid reason, he was mistaken for a terrorist, and they started firing at him. Why? I still don’t understand. Maybe it was the military mentality, a shoot-first, ask-later mindset. Or, more likely, it was the scenario I had feared most: boys with weapons, confused and scared, started shooting because they didn’t know what else to do. The aftermath of their actions was devastating. The fuselage of the plane was riddled with bullets; more than sixty holes were counted later, and the flight commander was hit in the leg. This is a perfect example of what happens, when you give a job to people, who are not properly prepared for it.
I remember how that airliner landed. It was strangely quiet. Not completely silent, but quite. I didn’t hear the usual noises that fill the sky around an airfield, and it gave me an uneasy feeling. Then, in that calm, we caught the sound of an approaching aircraft. It rolled past us at speed, and stopped somewhere far off. Then came the dry crackle of automatic rifles, sharp and clear in the frosty night air, followed by shouts to cease fire, and a string of heavy swearing.
After midnight, our shift ended, and we were replaced by others. At that moment, we learned that the elite Alpha anti-terror group had flown in from Moscow to storm the plane, if negotiations failed. And that was exactly what happened. The pleas of the terrorists’ parents to surrender achieved nothing. Instead, the hijackers began threatening to kill all the passengers. Considering they had already killed a few, everyone took their words seriously. After a short preparation, Alpha proceeded with the assault. It lasted five minutes. Inside the plane’s cabin, it took them only fifteen seconds to finish the job. No casualties. That was it.
I learned only a month later, that Alexey had been on the plane, and he was the one they had opened fire on. He was hit by several bullets, one of which severed his spine. After that, he crawled for six hours across the airfield until he reached the far cordon. He survived. He was flown urgently to Rostov, his hometown, where there was a good military hospital.
What happened to him after that, I’ve never been able to find out, even though I tried more than once to learn his fate.
I couldn't explain why his story affected me so much. By then, the war in Afghanistan was already in full swing, and I knew people who had returned from there, as well as those, who never did. We were slowly getting used to zinc coffins; and the words “cargo 200,” or simply “two hundred,” had entered our vocabulary.
We all sensed that changes were coming, and hoped for a better future. None of us could imagine the disaster that awaited us. Nobody expected the collapse of the country, the chaos that would follow, and that it would claim far more lives, than the war in Afghanistan. We became the lost generation, the one that took the hardest blow. Everything we had done, turned out to be completely worthless, including our sacrifices.
Perhaps Alexey’s tragedy affected me because no one noticed it. The hijacking itself caused a huge public outcry. Many articles were written about it, especially once the archives became available to the public. But nowhere, even in the most detailed articles, with analyses and reconstructions of what happened, could I find any information about him.
There is a brief mention on Wikipedia that a young serviceman managed to escape from the plane during landing, and was then fired upon. Nothing more. No name, no information about what happened to him afterward. He was simply forgotten, like so many others, who fulfilled their duty and then became an unnecessary burden to society. He ended up among those boys, who hadn’t yet turned twenty, but whose lives had already been crossed out. What they received was just an approving pat on the shoulder and a few words of praise as heroes. After that, they were left alone with their tragedy, needed only by their parents.
As time passes, it becomes clear how empty the sacrifices people made really were. They believed it was all for something greater than themselves. It turned out it wasn’t. Time shows that all those sacrifices are no longer needed by anyone; everyone has long forgotten them and sees them as meaningless.
Or even worse, when politics change, heroes suddenly become villains and are blamed for what they once did. Those who win, set their own rules and write their own version of history, deciding for themselves who is a hero and who is not. In the end, you realize, that the noble ideals people fought for, and the sacrifices they made, rarely hold any lasting value. Of course, there are always exceptions, but they are very rare. After all, the only thing that truly matters is family—those people who will always be there for you, no matter what. Everything else is just an illusion.
But you only start to understand all this, when it’s too late to change anything. All that's left is to watch as young, clueless dreamers enter the meat grinder called life... and envy them. Because, unlike them, all we have is our past, where nothing can be changed anymore.
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