It's time to stop inventing fantastic reasons for the "catastrophe of the century"
Arseny Dmitrievich Mironov - Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor; Alexander Alexandrovich Shcherbakov - Hero of the Soviet Union, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR.
Next week - March 27 - will mark the 40th anniversary of the death of the first cosmonaut of the planet Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Seregin, who was with him in the cockpit of the crashed MiG-15UTI twin aircraft. At one time, the results of the work of the government commission, which found out the causes of this tragedy, were not made public. As a result, in recent years, in the periodicals and in the electronic media, materials and programs have been appearing every now and then, in which, with reference to eyewitnesses, participants and materials from the investigation of the disaster, a variety of versions of what happened, up to absolutely fantastic, are presented. Let's try to figure it out.
SU-11 has nothing to do with
One of the authors of this article was a member of the flight subcommittee of the government commission and headed a group of experts included in it, as well as attracted specialists from the aviation industry and the Ministry of Defense. We analyzed the flight dynamics of the crashed MiG-15UTI. The work plan of the group contained more than a dozen items, including "Conducting experimental flights to study the modes of entering into a dive, diving and withdrawal from it", "Analysis of the movement of an aircraft in the modes of stall, spin and withdrawal from it, in case of control system failures, and with possible mistakes in maneuvers."
Below is an analysis of the considered technical causes of the crash (not only related to aerodynamics) and an assessment of the reliability of some versions, cited in numerous publications and speeches.
The impact of the sonic boom and wake caused by the flight of the Su-11 fighter, which took off from the Ramenskoye airfield, supposedly having dropped to the altitude at which the MiG-15UTI was located, and identified by the locals, is refuted by several arguments. So, at the request of the commission, a transcript of the wiring of the Su-11 in the air by the radar means of the Ramenskoye airfield was presented. It turned out that the flight of the machine was carried out (including near the flight zones of the Chkalovsky airfield) at a given altitude (more than 11 km) and strictly along the route without descent, while the plane of Gagarin and Seregin was separated from the ground by no more than 4200 m.
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The results of previous studies showed that the sonic boom from an aircraft, the dimensions of the Su-11, did not create dangerous effects on another aircraft. By the way, this is what is written in the encyclopedia "Aviation" (BDT, 1994): "A sonic boom is an acoustic phenomenon that occurs when shock waves propagate in the Earth's atmosphere created by an aircraft when flying at supersonic speed … The intensity of a sonic boom is small and has an order of 0, 1% of atmospheric pressure for a few tenths of a second”.
The impact of this weak acoustic phenomenon was previously assessed in special flights at the Flight Research Institute: when a MiG-25 aircraft flew at a speed exceeding two speeds of sound, at a distance of 50 to 200 m from the Tu-124 airliner, it was recorded on the latter. overload corresponding to hitting a weak gust of bumpy.
An assessment of the possible impact on the MiG-15UTI of a wake created by an airplane that has just flown along the same trajectory indicates that when it enters its narrow zone, a short-term heeling of the twin can be created in one direction or another, disorienting the crew, especially in the clouds … Gagarin and Seregin's MiG had some likelihood of rapprochement with another aircraft, since at that time there were two MiG-21s and one MiG-15UTI in the neighboring flight zones of the Chkalovsky airfield. However, the commission was not able to reliably determine the relative position of these aircraft due to the fact that the photo registration system of the radar screen did not work at the airport, and the radar altimeter did not function either. The air situation that preceded the disaster was restored by the flight leaders "from memory" (many hours after the emergency). At the same time, the result could not but be influenced by a natural desire to protect themselves and the higher command staff from the very likely accusations of omissions that led to the death of two Heroes of the Soviet Union - a person known on all continents and a renowned test pilot.
For these reasons, the speculative version of the influence of the wake of the Su-11 flying in the stratosphere and allegedly suddenly found at the flight altitude of the MiG-15UTI, and even precisely on its "tail", attracted by some "experts", has much less basis than the presence of wake trails "Their" machines (the three mentioned "MiGs"). As for the local residents' testimonies about the appearance of the aircraft, it is simply impossible to determine the outline of a fighter flying in the clouds, and the appearance of the Su-11 below their edge defies any reasonable explanation and is refuted by the analysis of radar wiring from the Ramenskoye airfield.
DIFFICULT METEO CONDITIONS
The assertion that the MiG-15UTI with outboard tanks easily falls into a tailspin and does not come out of it, was promptly refuted in special flights performed at the LII by one of the authors of this article during the work of the government commission and was reported to it: the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft with tanks and without tanks practically do not differ. In addition, one cannot help but recall that the instructions for the MiG-15UTI pilot indicated: a turn with a roll of 45 degrees must be performed at a speed of 450 km / h or more; the plane does not come out of a spin when the ailerons are deflected against the spin. Consequently, all flight personnel who mastered a training fighter were aware of the natural for any aircraft possibility of stalling into a spin and not getting out of it with inaccurate piloting.
Considering that an emergency recorder was not installed on the MiG-15UTI and the flight parameters could be determined from the remains of the instruments only at the moment the twin hit the ground, the TsAGI during the investigation determined the possible trajectories of the aircraft movement after the last radio transmission of Gagarin (the time was recorded on the ground tape recorder of the airfield " Chkalovsky ") and until the second when the car crashed into the forest (the wrist watches of the dead pilots stopped). The starting point of the beginning of the trajectory was taken according to the MiG-15UTI tracking data, restored "from memory", and the end point was the place of the fall. Calculations have shown that the following sequence of events satisfies these conditions: the stall of a fighter, a spin up to a height of 600 m (the lower edge of the cloud), an exit from a spin, and then from a descent and, due to a lack of altitude, an aircraft hit the ground.
It should be emphasized that in the course of the work of the commission, the reasons for both the stalling of the aircraft into a tailspin and the premature termination of the task by the crew were not identified. The most natural reason for such a decision could be an unexpected hit of the aircraft in multilayer clouds. This meteorological situation is confirmed by the results of observation from the An-24 weather reconnaissance aircraft, which took off two and a half minutes after the last message from Gagarin and reported that "in some places the lower boundary of the upper cloud layer is 2800-3100 m." This means that even when performing the first maneuvers, the MiG-15UTI could end up in the clouds. An additional factor for the termination of the task could be the lack of pressurization of the cabin due to an unclosed ventilation valve.
TRAGIC COMBINATION
The analysis shows that in the regiment commanded by Seregin, the level of demands on safety was low, and specifically on the day of flights, banal deviations from aviation laws and regulations were made.
Seregin himself was not prepared for actions in the event of an airplane stall, especially in the clouds; his training and checks in flight at high angles of attack are not recorded in the flight book at all.
The flight on the MiG-15UTI before Gagarin's independent flight on the MiG-17 was performed not in simple weather conditions, as provided by the flight sheet (exercise No. 2 of the KUBP), but in complex ones.
Outboard fuel tanks were installed on the plane without any reason, which are intended for use during long flights and hauls.
The planned flight table was not kept.
The flight was started before receiving information from a weather scout aircraft.
The crew did not report the reason for the premature termination of the mission, and the flight director did not ask for clarification.
The radar altimeter and the radar screen photographing system did not work at the airfield.
The barometer on board the aircraft was not charged.
Apparently, the MiG-15UTI took off with the cockpit ventilation valve open; the crew did not close the crane in flight.
Each of the noted drawbacks individually, of course, could not be the cause of the disaster, but their combination, we repeat, testifies to the low discipline in the 70th OITAP, which provoked a decrease in safety. On March 27, 1968, a combination of some of the shortcomings resulted in tragedy.
It follows from the above that the fatal emergency was the result of specific violations of the rules for organizing flights. Failure to comply with the planned table led, firstly, to the MiG-15UTI crew receiving information from the weather scout about the unfavorable cloudiness in the flight area with a delay, and secondly, to the simultaneous presence of five aircraft in adjacent flight zones (two MiG-15UTI, two MiG-21 and An-24), the actual height of which was not controlled. Difficult meteorological conditions contradicted the target task of checking before Gagarin's independent flight on the MiG-17, and the unpreparedness of the checker Seregin for flights at high angles of attack created a situation that he could not get out of. The lack of cabin pressurization due to an unclosed ventilation valve caused additional tension among the crew;the flight director did not relieve this tension without asking for the reason for the premature termination of the mission.
This list does not contain a conclusion about the direct cause of the disaster. However, the prerequisites were quite enough.
Life requires an answer to the harsh question: who was responsible for the above violations of aviation laws? The answer is on the surface: this is the command of the regiment, the leadership of the Cosmonaut Training Center, the service of the Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force for Space, and if you look above, then the regular monitoring and inspection services of the Air Force and the Ministry of Defense.
It should be noted that the completion of the work of the government commission was prevented by a letter from the cosmonauts to the Central Committee of the CPSU demanding the protection of the honor and dignity of the dead pilots from allegedly unfounded accusations.