Аннотация:Signatures of protons with energies above several hundred of MeV associated with major solar flares are observed with the neutron monitor network as ground level enhancements (GLEs). The time of proton acceleration on the Sun can be found from observations of a gamma-ray emission with spectral peculiarity around 70-100 MeV that results from the decay of neutral pions, which, in turn, are produced in interactions of high-energy protons with dense layers of the solar atmosphere. We have found previously that the pion-decay emission in these events started and peaked close to the time of the main flare energy release manifested by hard X-ray/gamma-ray continuum, narrow gamma-ray lines and high-frequency radio emission bursts as well as the maximum of the soft X-ray flux derivative. We studied data of the world neutron monitor network and GOES measurements of protons with energies above 500 MeV related to 42 GLEs since 1972 and light curves of the available electromagnetic emissions of the associated flares. Our study has revealed that the delay of the earliest arrival time of high-energy protons at 1 AU with respect to the observed peak time of the solar bursts did not exceed 8 min in 28 events. This result indicates that efficient acceleration of protons responsible for the GLE onset is close to the time of the main flare energy release.