Russian jet had little time to avoid fatal midair collision

UEBERLINGEN, Germany -- A chartered Russian airliner had less than a minute's warning before slamming into a cargo plane over southern Germany, killing 71 people, including 52 children headed for a beach vacation in Spain, authorities said Tuesday.

Swiss air traffic control, which was in charge of the flight paths of both planes involved in the Monday night crash, initially said it had given the Tupolev-154 nearly two minutes' notice and that the pilot did not begin descending to avoid the DHL cargo jet until a third request.

The Swiss revised their account after the German government agency for air accident investigations said the Russian pilot was given only about 50 seconds' warning to change altitude and that he reacted after a second notice.

In this lakeside resort town and nearby areas, residents recounted the horror of hearing a sound like rolling thunder, then watching flames, airplane parts and bodies fall from the sky. Tuesday evening, about 400 people attended a memorial service at Ueberlingen's 16th-century Cathedral of St. Nicholas.

Swiss and Russian officials continued, meanwhile, to trade charges over who was to blame for the accident.

'Cutting it close'

Anton Maag, chief of the control tower at Zurich, said the initial warning about a minute before the crash was "cutting it close but absolutely acceptable."

Nikolai Odegov, director of Russia's Bashkirian Airlines, denied that the crew of its Tupolev had made any mistakes. "My theory is that it is the fault of the air traffic controllers," Odegov said in Moscow. "They put the planes on the same path."

Russian officials also rejected the idea that the Tupolev's pilots might have had insufficient English skills.

"The version that the plane ignored the instructions sounds mad to all of us here. This simply cannot be the case because it could never happen," said Sergei V. Rybanov, another Bashkirian Airlines official. "These pilots were no kamikazes. They knew full well what a precious `cargo' they were carrying, and they would never on earth risk the lives of the children they had on board."

The Russian children, most between the ages of 8 and 16, were mainly from the political elite of the oil-rich, predominantly Muslim region of Bashkortostan. Russia's Interfax news agency said that 27 of the victims were the sons and daughters of high-ranking officials in the Bashkortostan government.

While some burning wreckage landed in residential areas, it apparently caused no injuries, police said.

"It is nearly a miracle that there were no casualties on the ground," Kurt Bodewig, Germany's transportation minister, said.

By Tuesday afternoon, police and volunteers had recovered 26 bodies. The flight data and cockpit voice recorders for both planes, which are vital for crash investigation, were also found, police said.