Siberia Airlines Flight 1812

Siberia Airlines

Industry	Airline
Founded	1957 (as Aeroflot Siberian Division)
Products	Air transport services

Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 Incident

Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 was a commercial airliner tragically downed by the Ukrainian Air Force over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001. The flight was traveling from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk, Russia. Onboard were 66 passengers and 12 crew members aboard a Soviet-manufactured Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft. Unfortunately, no one survived the incident. The wreckage was located approximately 190 km west-southwest of the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, 140 km north of the Turkish town of Fatsa, and about 350 km south-southeast of Feodosiya in Crimea.

The disaster resulted from a missile strike during combined Ukrainian-Russian military air defense drills held at the Russian-operated training site of the 31st Russian Black Sea Fleet Research Center, situated on Cape Opuk near Kerch in Crimea. Ukraine later acknowledged the possibility that one of its armed forces’ missiles, likely an errant S-200 (missile), was responsible for the downing. Compensation payments totaling $15 million were made by Ukraine to the families of all 78 victims, amounting to $200,000 per individual.

History

Flight 1812 took off from Tel Aviv, heading towards Novosibirsk. While cruising at an altitude of approximately 36,000 feet (11,000 m) above the Black Sea, Russian air traffic control in Sochi abruptly lost communication with the aircraft. Shortly after, the pilot of an Armenian aircraft flying nearby witnessed the Russian plane explode midair before it plunged into the sea around 13:45 Moscow time (09:45 GMT). The majority of the passengers were Israelis traveling to visit family members in Russia. Tragically, there were no survivors.

In response to the disaster, Israel declared a national day of mourning, which included a moment of silence, flags lowered to half-mast, and special educational sessions in schools addressing the event. A memorial dedicated to those who perished was erected within Israel’s Ben Shemen forest.

The incident occurred less than a month following the September 11 attacks in the United States, prompting initial Russian suspicions that terrorism was involved. Russian authorities rejected American claims suggesting that an S-200 missile had caused the crash. Subsequently, the Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee concluded that the tragedy resulted from an inadvertent strike by a Ukrainian S-200 missile during military drills conducted near Cape Opuk in Crimea.

Preliminary evaluations by U.S. military personnel indicated that an S-200 missile had missed its intended drone target—destroyed simultaneously by an S-300 missile—and instead of self-destructing as designed, it locked onto the passenger aircraft approximately 250 kilometres (160 mi) away and detonated roughly 15 metres (50 ft) above it.

Russian officials dismissed these American findings as lacking credibility. President Vladimir Putin stated publicly that the weaponry used in those exercises was incapable of reaching the flight corridor occupied by the plane. Initially, Ukrainian military representatives denied responsibility, asserting that their S-200 missile had been launched over water and had successfully self-destructed. The defense ministry spokesman Konstantin Khivrenko emphasized that neither the missile’s trajectory nor range corresponded with the location where the aircraft exploded.

Nevertheless, some Ukrainian authorities later acknowledged that their forces likely downed the airliner. They suggested environmental factors, such as water interference, caused the missile to deviate from its course. Following this event, Ukraine reportedly imposed a seven-year prohibition on testing Buk, S-300, and similar missile systems.

On October 7, 2001, reports indicated that the main fuselage of the aircraft—believed to contain the flight data recorder—was located at a depth near 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), which was beyond safe limits for divers to recover.

Crew

• Captain: Evgeny Viktorovich Garov, 42 (Russian: Евгений Викторович Гаров)
• First Officer: Boris Alexandrovich Levchugov, 37 (Russian: Борис Александрович Левчугов)
• Flight Engineer: Valery Glebovich Laptev, 37 (Russian: Валерий Глебович Лаптев)
• Second Flight Engineer: Sergei Ivanovich Lebedinskiy, 37 (Russian: Сергей Иванович Лебединский)
• Navigator: Konstantin Yurievich Revtov, 42 (Russian: Константин Юрьевич Ревтов)
• Flight Technician: Konstantin Petrovich Shcherbakov, 37 (Russian: Константин Петрович Щербаков)
• Flight Inspector: Viktor Viktorovich Alekseev, 52 (Russian: Виктор Викторович Алексеев)
• Senior Flight Attendant: Vladimir Dmitrievich Khomyakov, 51 (Russian: Владимир Дмитриевич Хомяков)
• Flight Attendant: Natalya Georgievna Kostenko, 45 (Russian: Наталья Георгиевна Костенко)
• Flight Attendant: Alexander Gennadievich Savich, 35 (Russian: Александр Геннадиевич Савич)
• Flight Attendant: Elena Vladimirovna Gusarova, 32 (Russian: Елена Владимировна Гусарова)
• Flight Attendant: Igor Viktorovich Voronkov, 42 (Russian: Игорь Викторович Воронков)

Israeli citizens

On 20 November 2003, the governments of Ukraine and Israel finalized an ex gratia compensation agreement. This accord was subsequently approved by the victims' families. Besides addressing compensation matters, the pact explicitly stated that Ukraine bore no legal responsibility for the incident involving the aircraft and was exempt from any related obligations. Former Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuz'muk, who was dismissed following the crash, remarked that the compensation payments represented a humanitarian gesture rather than an acknowledgment of liability.

Russian citizens

Ukraine committed to providing $200,000 in compensation to the relatives of each of the 38 Russian victims, matching the amount paid to families of the 40 Israeli casualties. This agreement received formal approval from the Russian parliament in May 2004 and was enacted into law by President Vladimir Putin in June of the same year.

Pechersk District Court

Certain family members of those who perished in the crash declined the compensation proposed by Ukraine. These relatives initiated a civil suit against the Ukrainian governmentTemplate:Dubious at the Pechersk local court located in Kyiv. During the proceedings, representatives from the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine asserted that forensic analysis of the wreckage, alongside radar data and missile technical specifications, demonstrated that a Ukrainian missile could not have caused the plane to crash. They further contended that the missile’s Soviet-era identification friend or foe system would have prevented it from targeting a Soviet-manufactured aircraft. The plaintiffs’ attorney maintainedTemplate:Fix/category that the Ukrainian government’s responsibility was effectively established by its prior negotiations regarding compensation for relatives of Israeli victims.

Judicial Appeals

On 22 August 2007, an appeals court in Kyiv rejected the lawsuit filed by victims' families against the Ministry of Defence, concluding that Ukraine’s military bore no responsibility for the incident. This ruling stands in opposition to findings presented by the IAC group, which conducted an investigation on behalf of Russia.

Lawsuit by Siberian Airlines

From 2003 to 2005, the Ukrainian authorities disbursed $15.6 million as compensation to the families of those who perished. In 2004, Siberian Airlines initiated legal action against both the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and the Ukraine State Treasury in a Kyiv-based court, demanding over $15.3 million for the aircraft's destruction. Nevertheless, in September 2011, the Kyiv Interregional Commercial Court of Appeal dismissed Siberian Airlines' compensation claim. Subsequent appeals to Kyiv's Economic Court of Appeals in May 2012 were also denied. The decision was ultimately confirmed in December 2012 by Ukraine’s Supreme Commercial Court. As of January 2013, judicial proceedings were ongoing but faced interruptions due to the Maidan protests.

Commemorative ceremonies

Remembrance events took place in locations including Israel, Sochi, and Novosibirsk.

See also

• Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243
• Itavia Flight 870
• Iran Air Flight 655
• Israel–Russia relations
• Israel–Ukraine relations
• Korean Air Lines Flight 007
• List of airliner shootdown incidents
• Korean Air Lines Flight 902
• Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
• Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752
• 2003 Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident
• Russia–Ukraine relations

External links

• (in Russian) Investigation. Interstate Aviation Committee.
• Template:ASN accident
• Canadian TV coverage regarding the unscheduled landing at Burgas, Bulgaria.