Terrorism Bloody Band

By all accounts, the Ovechkins of Siberia were a remarkable family. After giving birth to the tenth of her eleven children, Ninel Ovechkin was awarded the Soviet title of "Hero Mother." After her husband died in 1984, she reared her seven sons and four daughters by herself in the city of Irkutsk, about 2,600 miles east of Moscow. The boys started a popular local jazz band called the Seven Simeons and recently performed in Japan.

That made it all the more puzzling last week when the family attempted to hijack a Soviet airliner, an incident that climaxed in a moment of supreme horror. According to Soviet press reports, Ninel and ten of her children boarded an Aeroflot Tu-154 jetliner at Irkutsk, bound for Leningrad 2,900 miles away. Their luggage included a double-bass case, which was too big to pass through the airport X-ray machines but which family members insisted was too valuable to put in the cargo hold. About halfway through the long journey, the trouble began. Two of the Ovechkin sons produced sawed-off rifles from the instrument case and handed the flight attendant a note, threatening to blow up the plane unless it was diverted "to a capitalist country, to London."

Explaining that the jet had insufficient fuel, the flight crew told the hijackers they would have to land at the Finnish town of Kotka. Instead, the three-engine jet touched down at an airstrip outside Leningrad, where Soviet officials attempted to negotiate with the family. But after the Ovechkins shot and killed a flight attendant, an antiterrorist team stormed the plane. As the men rushed the jet, the hijackers apparently set off an explosive device, and a shoot-out ensued. Realizing that the attempt had failed, two of the Ovechkin sons shot and killed their mother, then turned their weapons on themselves. A total of nine people died, including the flight attendant, three passengers, Ninel and her four eldest sons, ranging in age from 25 to 17. At least 20 others were hospitalized. Ninel, described by the Soviet news agency TASS as a "plump, fashionably dressed woman of over 50," apparently gave the orders throughout the incident.

Reflecting Mikhail Gorbachev's call to report the bad news as well as the good, the Soviet media gave the event big play. News of the incident was first carried by TASS, within 24 hours. Follow-up reports included eyewitness accounts from passengers and reaction from shocked residents of Irkutsk. Soviet journalists found themselves bedeviled by the senseless tragedy. Why did they do it? Pravda asked. "They had everything they needed."