Aeroflot Flight 19

Aeroflot Flight 19 was a scheduled passenger flight from Bykovo Airport, Moscow, Soviet Union, to Bryansk Airport, Bryansk, Soviet Union. On 2 November 1973, the Yakovlev Yak-40 flying this route was hijacked by four people ten minutes before landing. The aircraft was then diverted to Moscow's Vnukovo Airport, where the hijackers demanded a buyout and provision of a flight to Sweden. The hostages inside the aircraft were subsequently liberated after the authorities stormed the aeroplane. This incident became one of the first well-known cases of storming a hijacked aircraft in USSR aviation.

Hijacking

Ten minutes prior to landing at Bryansk Airport, four male hijackers (Viktor Romanov, Vladimir Zhalnin, Pyotr Bondarev, and Aleksandr Nikiforov) retrieved guns out of the overhead luggage bins and took passengers as hostages, then attempted to storm the cockpit. The noises from the passenger cabin reached the cockpit. Captain Kashin asked his flight engineer to investigate the situation in the cabin, and after Nikitin realised that there were hijackers on board, he immediately shouted the information to the flight crew and shut the door from the outside. The flight engineer tried to disarm one of the hijackers (Romanov), however, he was injured by Zhalnin. One of the passengers (Vladimir Gaponenko) also attempted to disarm Bondarev, but he lost his balance from the aircraft pitching, and as a result got injured.

In the flight deck Kashin sent a distress signal to air traffic control. Meanwhile, the attackers managed to break the lock on the cockpit door and entered the flight deck. Hijackers demanded that the flight crew head back to Moscow. Whilst on approach to Vnukovo Airport, the intruders forced the crew to inform the authorities that they demanded payment of US$1.5 million for all hostages and for information about future aircraft hijacker groups. Despite difficult weather conditions in Moscow, the crew managed successfully to land the Yak-40 at Vnukovo.