The Torn Pearl Necklace: Remembering the Bodensee Tragedy
Lake Bodensee is known for its beauty, but unfortunately also for tragic events. On my way back from Switzerland in 2025, I stopped here to visit the memorial dedicated to the 2002 air disaster. This place is certainly worth a separate mention.
On July 2, 2002 (wiki), one of the most tragic air accidents in early 21st‑century шт Europe occurred in the skies over Lake Bodensee: a German cargo plane collided with a Russian passenger aircraft. There were 69 people on board the Russian plane, among them more than 50 schoolchildren.
At the crash site near Überlingen, Germany, the memorial “Torn Pearl Necklace” was erected in 2004 in memory of the victims. Hollow metal spheres, partially connected by steel cables, symbolize the remains of a pearl necklace found at the crash site.
Two years after the crash, the air traffic controller on duty that night was murdered. A father who had lost his wife and two children in the collision came to the controller’s home and stabbed him twelve times. The events inspired several films, both in the United States (“Aftermath”) and in Russia (“The Unforgiven”).
Today, the crash site is a quiet meadow with a memorial that leaves a deep impression.