Plane crash Darina is the main passenger. “The main passenger”: the body of a girl was found, whose photo became a symbol of the plane crash. "Darina Gromova, "main passenger" photo: instagram

For the first time in two years, Elena Alekseevna Gromova, the grandmother of the “main passenger,” decided to give an interview. After the tragedy, she did not find the strength to go to work and retired. The only thing that distracts me from those memories now is social activities and waiting for the results of the investigation.

We met at the “Museum for Friends” cafe in Pushkin. Literally across the road in the shade of trees stands the Tsarskoye Selo Gymnasium, where Alexey Gromov graduated from high school.

WILL NOT BE IN THE PAST

“My husband is a military pilot, a retired aviation colonel,” Elena Gromova tells the story of the family. - We often had to move from place to place. Children were born in garrisons. Alexey was born in the Far East.

In 1997, when my husband’s service came to an end, they transferred to Pushkin. When Lesha graduated from the ninth grade, we moved to Gatchina - they gave us an apartment there.

So Alexey graduated from grades 10-11 there, at a school with a physics and mathematics focus. Studying was easy for my son; he did not need to be supervised. He himself understood what he needed. And in the 11th grade, Alexey had already made his choice: he signed up for courses at Military Mech. He chose the Faculty of Information Systems and Technologies. The competition was crazy, but he passed physics and mathematics with excellent marks. He scored ten out of ten. And Lesha graduated from school as a student. It was such a joy - he fulfilled his dream. The strongest university, and also budget education.

This is how he is, our Lesha. If he has a goal, he achieves it. He doesn’t see any obstacles in front of him. Sociable, open. All our friends adored him.

I don’t want to say “was” about him; he won’t be in the past as long as we exist.

LOVE AFFAIR AT WORK

Alexey Gromov was only 27 years old. Daughter-in-law Tatyana would have turned the same age on December 9. It was a beautiful office romance. The couple met at work in 2012. A native of Togliatti, Tatyana worked in large company in St. Petersburg - organized forums and conferences. Alexey worked in the IT department.

Tanya was a very talented, purposeful, creative girl. She graduated from ENGEKON, spoke foreign languages, they say about such people: talent is talent in everything. I used to do gymnastics, sew, embroider, and draw. It was bursting with energy. So many thoughts, so many ideas in my head. Everything she took on came easy to her. Kind girl. She and Lesha looked very natural and organic,” says Elena Gromova. “I remember the first time he brought her home.” They came in with smiles on their faces. It was clear: yes, this is love. It's as if puzzles have come together. This rarely happens.

They got married in August 2014. Alexey proposed to his beloved in the sky. I rented a plane with an instructor especially for this purpose.

Soon after the wedding, Tanya and Lesha had a daughter, the couple was really looking forward to her.


Mom called Darina a princess. The parents doted on their daughter and dreamed of a second child.

The baby took a prize in one of the children's competitions “How I spent my summer.” This was her first prize: a diploma, a bouquet... We all went together to receive this gift,” says Elena Gromova. - Darina is a charming, smart, mischievous, inquisitive girl. Everyone's favorite.

Before flying to Sharm el-Sheikh, mom took a photo of the baby in Pulkovo and signed: “ main passenger" So Darina became an unspoken symbol of the tragedy - the most important, smallest passenger of flight 9268. When the tragedy happened, the baby was only ten months old.

NO ONE COULD ACCEPT THIS

I remember the events of October 31st like yesterday. This is such pain - pain on a universal scale. “I lost half of my family,” says Elena Gromova. - Nobody could accept this. All the family friends took it too seriously. One almost committed suicide, another ended up in intensive care...

The evening before our flight from Egypt, Lesha called. You could hear from his voice that he was happy,” recalls Elena Gromova. - He said that Darishka really liked everything. Everything, he says, I’ll tell you tomorrow. And he specified the arrival time.

Lesha’s parents left for the airport in advance. On the way, we stopped at a grocery store - we needed to feed the travelers on the way.

Usually I get up in the morning, turn on the TV, and go online. And that morning we did none of those things. This was the strangeness of this day. Although by that time everything was already known... We didn’t see them for two weeks, we missed them. So there was only one plan for the day: to meet the children,” Elena Gromova sighs heavily. - We left early to stop at the store. It was necessary to bring them, help with lunch, so that after the vacation they would not be overloaded, and would have a rest from the road.

And when we were driving to Pulkovo, my eldest son called my husband. And Lesha’s friends told him... My husband had difficulty holding the steering wheel then, military restraint probably helped. But still we drove with the hope that this was nonsense.

When we arrived at the airport, there weren’t many people there yet. And this red line on the board that the flight was delayed... But the information desk said that there was no information. To explain, we were offered to go from Pulkovo to the hotel. There were some people there, there were psychologists, but there was no need for them at that time.

I don't know how to explain my condition. We found ourselves in ashes. Some kind of surreality, as if all this was not happening to us. It was just a shock. And now the shock has passed, only the pain remains.

We went through all the horror of the hell that our children had to experience. We went for identification. We saw them at the morgue.

THE SKY HAS NOT FORGIVEN

You know, I think that heaven has not forgiven us. Lesha was also a reserve officer, and after Voenmekh he wanted to fly to Kamchatka,” admits Elena Gromova. - But I didn’t let him in. I wanted him to be near...

But the parents tried to dissuade the young people from vacationing in Egypt.

Lesha, it’s Syria there. Go to Cyprus, advised the head of the family. But in Egypt the sea seemed warmer and the sun brighter. I wanted to please the child. When they flew away, strange things happened to my father: he lost the key, then he fell ill with a fever for two days for no reason.

The last family meeting of the male half was in September of that year. The boys and their husband went mushroom picking and fishing. Then my husband told me that he felt something... Lesha then hugged him and said: “Dad, don’t get older! You and I will do such things.”

Lesha had good prospects: upon returning from vacation, a promotion order was waiting for him at work.

Our son was brought up in the spirit of statehood. Reserve officer. He studied at the budget department. It is very painful and insulting when a country loses such people. And the state is obliged to make sure that the crime is solved. It may take some time, but this is a crime without a statute of limitations.

REFERENCE

The Gromovs occupied the 9th row, seats D, E, F. Rescuers managed to find the 10-month-old baby only a few days after the plane crash. She was brought in on the second plane - with those who could be at least somehow identified without the help of DNA. The bodies of Lesha and Tanya were delivered much later. The whole family was buried one day before forty days from the moment the liner crashed.

Information about those killed in a plane crash over Egypt appears on the Internet. The ill-fated flight brought together dozens beautiful stories love and amazing human destinies.

Darina looks at the runway, reports TK "Russia 24". Small hands, fingers spread, pressed against the glass. “The main passenger,” Tatyana’s mother tenderly captions the photo of her daughter. This will be the first flight in her life. On October 15, the Gromov family left for Egypt from Pulkovo Airport. Alexey and Tanya got married a year ago - they celebrated a “calico” wedding in July. They stayed in Sharm el-Sheikh for two weeks and celebrated Darina’s 10th month. Her photograph has already become a symbol of this tragedy.

There were 25 children on board the Kogalymavia plane, including Nastya Sheina. She turned 3 years old in March. For her parents, this trip to the sea was special. Among Arabian fairy tale, in the most popular tourist city, under the scorching sun even at this time of year, Yuri and Olga celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary and ten years since they met.

Little Nastya never left her parents for a second. The photographs show her fooling around with her mom on a sun lounger near the pool, posing with her dad near the clumsy inscription “Egypt 2015” made by hand in the sand. On October 31 at 6:40 am Olga Sheina will write on her Internet page: “We are flying home.” And she will post a photo of her husband with Nastya in his arms. In 11 minutes the plane will take off, and these frames will be the last published.

It so happened that this particular flight collected dozens of incredible and touching love stories on board. The deputy head of Pskov, Alexander Kopylov, was a widower. His meeting with Elena Melnikova completely changed his life. She helped him get over his loss. Colleagues and acquaintances noticed: when the couple was together, their eyes shone with happiness. He promised to take her to the sea and kept his promise. When it became known today that the couple was on the list of dead, no one could believe this news.

“I couldn’t believe it. And when the information was confirmed, it was a shock. He wanted to give a gift to his wife Lena Mikhailovna, who had a birthday three days ago,” says Ivan Tsetsersky, the head of Pskov.

Love also predetermined the trip for the Rodin family. Elena and Alexander went to celebrate their first wedding anniversary on the golden beaches of Sharm el-Sheikh. Three years ago, Lena vacationed in Egypt with her parents, but this year she decided to return here with her beloved man. Tomorrow was the girl's birthday.

Citizen of Belarus with a ticket to Egyptian resort encouraged at work. Relatives say this was his first flight.

Most of the plane's passengers were St. Petersburg residents. But residents of the Leningrad, Novgorod and Tambov regions also flew on board, Altai Territory, Karelia, as well as Pskov, Krasnoyarsk, Volgograd, Tyumen. Relatives of the victims are now traveling to St. Petersburg, where identification will take place.

Relatives of the victims have been gathering at Pulkovo Airport since the morning. They are confused and seem to not fully believe what happened.

“I came here, entered the airport. I went up to the counter and asked if there were still flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, they told me that only in the evening. That’s it,” says a relative of one of the victims.

Children and parents, brothers and sisters, friends and work colleagues were expected here. Irina came to meet her friends. At the beginning of the week they were basking in the sun together. She was supposed to fly on the same flight, but her husband persuaded her to return home a few days earlier. Yulia Kazantseva managed to avoid tragedy in the same way.

With loved ones of passengers flights Sharm el-Sheikh- Psychologists now work in St. Petersburg.

Along with the passengers, there were also seven crew members on board: two pilots and five flight attendants. Colleagues spoke of them as responsible and efficient workers. Captain aircraft was Valery Nemov, he had more than 12 thousand flight hours. Kogalymavia denies his possible guilt in the crash of the airliner.

“This person is certainly experienced, certainly respected, certainly a very honored pilot. We have no reason to assume that this was some kind of mistake on the part of the air crew,” said Oksana Golovina, a partner at THC.

On this moment Already 150 bodies have been pulled out of the rubble. Some of them have already been sent to Cairo to the city morgue. A special plane from the Ministry of Emergency Situations flew to Egypt. Russian rescuers will also take part in the operation at the crash site.

"Chief Passenger"- photograph of ten-month-old Darina Gromova (December 26, 2014 - October 31, 2015), who died with her parents in the A321 crash over the Sinai Peninsula. Photo from Pulkovo Airport, posted by her mother Tatyana Gromova in social network"VKontakte" with the caption "Chief Passenger", was published in many world media and attracted much attention as a symbol of the plane crash, which became the largest in the history of Russian aviation.

Photography and reaction[ | ]

A photo of Darina Gromova standing near the glass and watching the planes at Pulkovo Airport was published by her mother Tatyana Gromova on her page on VKontakte and Instagram with the caption “Main Passenger”, this post by Tatyana Gromova was the last.

Shortly after the plane crashed and the list was published photograph of the dead of a ten-month-old girl at the airport attracted a lot of attention, flew around the world, was published by many media, appeared on television news and was called by many publications a symbol of the tragedy of flight 9268.

A few days after the plane crash, a petition arose on the website change.org for the installation of a monument to Darina Gromova at Pulkovo airport. According to the initiators, this should be a sculpture of the “main passenger” with an airplane in his hand. Within a few days, the petition received more than 160 thousand signatures. The Russian Youth Union sent a letter to the famous sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, asking him to become the author of a sculptural composition that included a sculpture of Darina Gromova. Tsereteli agreed to the creation of the monument and stated that he had several options and agreed to work on the memorial for free. Earlier, the authorities of St. Petersburg announced that the city does not have the money to create a memorial, but it could be accepted as a gift. According to the chief architect of St. Petersburg, Alexander Petrov, the memorial should not be installed at Pulkovo Airport, as it will bring sad thoughts to passengers

Darina is the main passenger: the story of the trip, about her family, photos. In a terrible plane crash that occurred over the Sinai Peninsula, 224 people died, including 29 children. But I would like to pay more attention to one of the stories: the Gromov family (mother, father and daughter), flying from vacation.

Main passenger

Ten-month-old Darina Gromova, the daughter of Alexei Gromov, was interested in looking at airplanes in such close proximity for the first time in her life, as a result of which her mother captured the child’s genuine interest in the photo and posted it on Instagram with the description: “ Main passenger #family #darinagromova @Pulkovo Airport Saint-Petersburg New Terminal 1" For the Gromov family, this was their first trip together.

As LifeNews reports, Darina’s grandmother admitted that she was worried that her granddaughter would not survive the flight well, but the parents did not dare to leave their 10-month-old daughter for the duration of the trip. In addition, the woman noted that her husband and Darina’s grandfather was a military pilot who retired with the rank of colonel. Her son Alexey also wanted to become a pilot, but she did not allow him. As a result, he went to work for an IT company.

 

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