Obi Hephzibah Ahaomakaku
Thirty-three-year-old Major Peter Makowicka, while on a training mission on January 14th,1975, noticed his Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG21 had developed an engine failure. While he was closing the military airbase, the plane encountered an open cover hook at the engine compressor segment. This was a result of barely fixed maintenance by the technical engineers.
Major Makowicka, on realizing this immediately placed a distress call to the military control centre. He was ordered to eject from the plane and let it crash. He vehemently refused this order as the aircraft would have crashed into the textile combinate Cottbus. The TKC housed thousands of workers; Major Peter quickly decided to divert the plane, aiming to hit the empty field.
With little time and losing elevation, the major had no time to get to the field; the plane scraped the roof of a residential building just behind the factory site and into a five-story apartment at 10:15 am. As the plane hit the building, the major, alongside five women, died on the spot.
Upon its collision with the building, the apartment quickly got in flames, and the fire quickly spread from the basement to the fourth floor.
Quickly, the Cottbus fire department got to the building and immediately began assisting the residents in evacuating the building. The force caused the fuel tanks on the plane to burst, and all 800 litres started leaking out.
They could put out the fire and control the situation an hour and fifteen minutes after the crash. It required over 200 firefighters, police, medics, and NVA soldiers to calm the situation. During the evacuation, the residents suffered severe injuries as many jumped out of the windows in fear.
A five years jail sentence was given to the technician who failed to close the latch properly. He was sentenced to five years in jail. Major Peter Makowicka was later awarded the “Battle Order for Services to People and Fatherland” in gold for his heroic sacrifice.
