A little more than 30 years ago, one of the most terrible events in aviation history occurred. In 1994, Russian airline veteran Andrew Viktorovich Danilov was piloting Aeroflot Flight 593.
Which had 63 passengers and 12 flight crew. Shortly after midnight on March 23, the aircraft from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Russia to Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong safely took off.
First officer Igor Vasilyevich Piskaryov (5,885 hours) and relief captain Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky (8,940 hours) joined Danilov, who had 9,500 hours of in-flight experience.
The captain’s two kids, who were traveling with their father for the first time abroad, were on board. Most of the 63 people on board were sleeping as the plane flew on autopilot to its destination.
At 00:43, Kudrinsky’s 13-year-old daughter was sitting in her father’s seat, manually modifying the heading setting on the autopilot to give her the impression that she was “flying” the aircraft.
For unclear reasons, Kudrinsky allowed his 15-year-old son to effectively assume control of the airplane at 00:51.
