EVENING BELL:
A Feat of the Ending Day

On October 15, 1970, 19-year-old flight attendant Nadezhda Kurchenko died in the skies over Batumi, stepping into the arms of terrorists. This was recounted in Rodina magazine by Gennady Bocharov, the best reporter of the 20th century, who was then working for Komsomolskaya Pravda and was the first to report on Nadezhda.

Throwing open the cockpit, she shouted to the crew:
"Attack! He's armed!"
And at the same moment, slamming the cockpit door, she turned to face the enraged bandit.

The first bullet hit her in the thigh. She pressed herself even tighter against the cockpit door. The terrorist tried to squeeze her throat. Nadezhda tried to knock the weapon out of his right hand. A stray bullet hit the ceiling. Nadezhda fought back with her legs, arms, and even her head.

The captain abruptly interrupted his right turn and immediately banked the roaring An-24 left, then right. The pilots tried to knock down their attacker, believing he was inexperienced and that Nadya would hold on.

Stunned by Nadya's incredible resistance, he fired point-blank and, throwing the desperate defender of the crew and 46 passengers into the corner of the narrow aisle, burst into the cockpit. His degenerate son followed him with a sawed-off shotgun.

"To Turkey! To Turkey! If you return to the Soviet shore, we'll blow up the plane!"

Another bullet pierced the back of the captain, Grigory Chakhrakiy. The next shot paralyzed navigator Valery Fadeyev's arm and struck him in the chest. The navigator lost consciousness. The bleeding captain also did the same. Co-pilot Shavidze took control.

The plane, pierced by forty-two bullets, falls to the hard, alien ground. Pictures of the rescued passengers, weeping with joy, will be seen around the world.

In the first two weeks alone after my reports, Komsomolskaya Pravda received over 12,000 letters and telegrams from shocked readers. And on the day of Nadya's funeral, over her flower-strewn coffin and the thousands of people following her through the streets of Sukhumi, every plane departing flapped its wings. On each plane, flight attendants tearfully told passengers:

"Look down, while you can still see the city. These are people saying goodbye to our Nadya."

Do you believe we're still the same?