When Yuri Gagarin died, mourning was declared in the country. The first mourning is not for the head of state, but for the person who opened the way for humanity to space. It is still unclear why the experienced pilot and cosmonaut died on a training flight.
First mourning
On March 27, 1968, less than seven years after his conquest of space, Yuri Gagarin died. Killed during a training flight on a MiG-15UTI aircraft.
Mourning was declared in the country. Its uniqueness was that for the first time it was announced after the death of not the head of state, but an ordinary person, although Gagarin, of course, can hardly be called “simple”, he was a hero not only for Soviet citizens, but for the whole world. The next day, urns with the ashes of the dead Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Seregin were buried near the Kremlin wall.
Almost half a century has passed since this tragedy, but to this day there is no clarity among researchers as to what caused the accident. Among the versions there are both interesting and almost fabulous (some seriously believe that Gagarin was stolen by aliens).
Official version
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Immediately after the plane crash, a medical, engineering and flight subcommittee was created. Separately, the KGB commission worked, which checked the versions about whether the catastrophe was caused by a conspiracy, terrorist attack, or the result of malicious intent. This commission discovered, by the way, many violations in the work of the aerodrome ground personnel.
Considering the importance of the incident, the control over the identification of the causes of the accident was the strictest. A government commission was also formed, which included Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Dmitry Ustinov, Air Force Commander Konstantin Vershinin, General Aircraft Designer Artem Mikoyan, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Leonid Smirnov and Minister of Aviation Industry Peter Dementyev.
The official conclusions of the commission, included in the so far classified 29 volumes of the investigation, were as follows: “The crew, due to the changed air situation in flight, made a sharp maneuver and fell into a tailspin. Despite the attempts of the pilots to bring the car into horizontal flight, the plane collided with the ground, the crew died. No equipment failures or malfunctions were found. Chemical analysis of the remains and blood of the pilots did not reveal any foreign substances."
As you can see, the last words in the report indicate that no alcohol was found in the blood of the pilots. It is important to understand this, since one of the most common "folk" versions was this: Gagarin was in a state of alcoholic intoxication, or drank the day before. She, of course, does not stand up to criticism.
There were plenty of "white spots" in this crash. It is unclear why the pilots did not eject, and why did they not report on the radio about the emergency situation?
Rumors and versions
Regarding the death of Gagarin, whoever voiced their "competent" opinion. For many years, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who was a member of the disaster investigation committee, has been developing his version of the death of the pilots. He assures that the plane of Gagarin and Seryogin fell into a flat spin as a result of the impact of a wake from another plane. The version is interesting, only it is not confirmed by any documents. There is no official data on the flight in the exercise area of another aircraft.
In addition, after the death of the pilots at the LII them. Gromov, tests were carried out, which proved that the hit of the MiG-15UTI into the jet cannot lead to the dumping of the car into a tailspin.
In addition to this version, there are several more, in which, as a rule, an emphasis is placed on a combination of adverse weather conditions and technical problems.
Kuznetsov's version
The most interesting version of the reasons for the death of Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Seregin was expressed by Colonel Igor Kuznetsov, who personally participated in the investigation of the causes of the accident. In his opinion, the pilots did not eject and did not broadcast about the emergency, because they were unconscious.
Igor Kuznetsov believes that the cause of the tragedy is the depressurization of the cabin. The MiG-15, on which the pilots flew, was assembled in Czechoslovakia; it was distinguished from domestic machines by the control of a ventilation valve.
The pilots probably discovered that a depressurization had occurred already at an altitude of four kilometers. According to the instructions, they began a sharp decline to an altitude of two kilometers, but a sharp drop in altitude (the plane was descending at a speed of 145 meters per second) led to the pilots fainting. The flight became uncontrollable.
However, this version also has weak points. It is not clear why such experienced pilots were panicked, and the depressurization of the cockpit does not always lead to such tragedies.
It will be possible to reliably establish what happened on March 27, 1968 only after the declassification of the archives and a thorough examination of the remains of the aircraft, which are still stored in the Research Institute No. 13 of the Ministry of Defense near Moscow.