That's funny. I thought Jose Jimenez was the first man in space. Si'.
Posted on 04/04/2011 10:43:05 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Former Cosmonaut Offers First-Hand Account Of The Death Of Yury Gagarin
Russian pilot and cosmonaut Vladimir Aksyonov has offered the most plausible account to date of the crash of the fighter jet that killed Yury Gagarin, the first man in space, and Vladimir Seryogin, a regimental commander at the cosmonaut training center where Gagarin was enrolled. Aksyonov, a two-time Hero of the Soviet Union, was with Gagarin at a pre-flight medical exam on March 27, 1968, the day of the crash. He flew in a different plane on that fateful day.
Aksyonov presents his unofficial version of events in his book "Along the Roads of Trial", which has just been released in a limited printing. A signed copy was presented to this RIA Novosti correspondent at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics.
Gagarin and Aksyonov saw the same doctor before boarding different planes
Outside the Polbin Higher Air Force School, where Gagarin was enrolled from 1955 to 1957, stands a concrete pedestal supporting the MiG-15 jet in which the world's first cosmonaut learned to fly.
"The first person to offer this version of the crash was Hero of the Soviet Union Sergei Anokhin, an experienced test pilot, and a member of the commission that investigated the disaster," Aksyonov told me.
"It was soon after the crash. He told me first not only because we were friends and knew each other so well that could finish each other's sentences, but also perhaps because on that tragic day I shared the same changing room with Gagarin, got my pre-flight medical clearance from the same doctor and was briefed about the weather by the same officer."
Aksyonov says that the crews then went to their separate aircraft, with Yury Gagarin assigned to fly in a MiG-15 with Vladimir Seryogin, and Aksyonov assigned to a plane conducting training in zero-gravity conditions.
Bad weather a factor Aksyonov says that weather conditions on that day were difficult but still within the acceptable range: "The cloud cover was far from standard. Its lower edge was at an altitude of 600 meters. Then there was a solid mass of clouds up to 4,000 meters, with few openings. Beyond that there were no clouds; the sky was clear and visibility was very good. We were even shown photos of the upper edge taken by a weather plane."
Gagarin's last words Aksyonov says that Gagarin's last message from the jet was that they had completed their mission to reach the upper edge of the cloud cover, at an altitude of 4,000 meters.
They were flying at a low speed but at a great altitude. Their next maneuver was to make a rapid descent and prepare for a dive through the cloud cover.
Minutes before Gagarin's death "A descent can be performed in several ways," Aksyonov said. "There is the downward spiral with several rotations, or you can perform a half-roll and then pull out of the steep descent in the direction of the airfield. The second method - a quick descent with a half-roll - is used by pilots who want to finish their assignment quickly to allow other pilots to use the plane. Cosmonaut Yevgeny Khrunov was scheduled to fly on that day, and this is why Gagarin and Seryogin opted for for the fast dive."
Aksyonov believes that Gagarin and Seryogin were two to three seconds late in pulling out of the dive after the half-roll, causing them to end up in the thick cloud layer. But there could have been other factors as well: the greater altitude and density of the cloud cover at the point of entry compared with the general level, or the inadequate height at which the MiG-15 started the half-roll.
Causes of the tragedy in Aksyonov's account "So the causes of the crash could have been bad weather, with the upper edge of the cloud cover 4 kilometers up, and the lower edge at a mere 600 meters," Aksyonov said. "There was also the pilots' failure (primarily Seryogin's) to judge the weather correctly, and also the sudden entry into the unbroken cloud layer at a high speed while diving, which rendered the pilots unable to fly steady using the instruments. Another cause of the crash was the inadequate height between the lower cloud edge and the point at which the pilots pulled out."
Entering tailspin The aircraft unexpectedly found itself in dense clouds, travelling at high speeds, with the attitude gauges - primarily the bank and pitch indicator - behaving erratically. In these conditions, the plane will most likely enter a deep downward spiral, or, if they pilot is making energetic attempts to pull up, enter into a rapid tailspin. According to official findings, Gagarin and Seryogin's aircraft emerged from the clouds nearly vertical, and hurtled towards the ground at a speed of 700 kilometers per hour. At this speed, the MiG-15 took three seconds to fall the remaining 600 meters to the ground.
Gagarin and Seryogin did not try to eject "The fact that Gagarin and Seryogin did not try to eject themselves, or to establish radio contact with the ground, can be explained by their sudden entry into the cloud cover," Aksyonov said. "Both pilots were struggling to regain control of the aircraft. If the emergency had been caused by some outside factor, the pilots would have immediately reported it by radio."
He also noted the difficulty of piloting a heavy MiG-15 UTI fighter in a vertical position.
"At the lower point of any aerial figure or half-roll, aircraft speeds are at their highest - about 700 kilometers an hour," Aksyonov said. "So it is quite possible for a MiG-15 in rapid descent to overshoot the target altitude by a few hundred meters or even a kilometer."
Official report on Gagarin's death still classified The government commission that investigated the circumstances of Gagarin's death was never able to pinpoint the true cause of the tragedy. Its report remains classified.
According to the official version of events, due to a change in air conditions (the commission did not specify what change) the crew performed a sharp maneuver and entered into a tailspin. The pilots, despite their efforts to right the plane, crashed to the ground and died. No equipment failures or malfunctions were reported. An analysis of the pilots' remains and blood revealed no traces of foreign substances.
Aksyonov rejects rumors that the pilots were drunk The secrecy surrounding the accident has given rise to rumors and conspiracy theories. One widely repeated story is that Gagarin and Seryogin each drank a glass of vodka before flying. Official sources reject this claim, citing the fact that investigators found no alcohol in the pilots' blood. Aksyonov agrees with the official explanation on this point.
"That day was very important for Yury Gagarin, and everyone who knew the details and the pilots personally find speculation that Gagarin and Seryogin were drunk during flight preposterous," Aksyonov said.
Popular myths There is also a conspiracy theory that Gagarin had fallen out of favor with the Soviet leadership and the accident was engineered by the KGB, whose agents played a leading role in the crash investigation. Others claim that the accident itself was fabricated by the authorities, while in reality Gagarin was arrested by the secret police. His appearance was then altered by plastic surgeons, and he was committed to a provincial psychiatric clinic where he later died.
Some would-be investigators claim that Gagarin staged his own death, and lived the remainder of his life under a false name in the Orenburg Region, where he died as an old man in a hunting accident. Yet another conspiracy theory, the so-called "Soviet Moon plot", has it that Gagarin died a few days before the alleged training flight during the launch of a new secret spacecraft to explore the ?oon.
There is a rumor that Gargarin threw a drink in Breshnev's face over the death of his best friend in a suicide space flight.
That's funny. I thought Jose Jimenez was the first man in space. Si'.
The Soviets special way of erasing heroes that failed to measure up to Party expectations.
The Soviets special way of erasing heroes that failed to measure up to Party expectations.
Reminds me of Chuck Yeager’s description of flight-testing the Mig-15 (from a Nork defector) in his memoirs.
He wrote that it was the scariest work he ever did. Especially determining its dive performance (he personally inspected the ejection seat before every time he went up).
“Bank and pitch indicator”? The thing didn’t have that artificial horizon gizmo?
The Soviets made Potemkin villages to back their Potemkin political philosophy.
Creating Potempkin military aircraft was therefore par for the course.
Their deaths were a tragedy, in any case.
Yury Gagarin was the first human in space. I don’t care if it was a communist achievement, or if he was a communist. He was a pioneer, and a hero. I have four teenagers, all girls (yeah, I know), and I ask them if they know the name, Yury Gagarin. As you might suspect, they do not. This is a shame. I bet that Russian school kids know the names Orville and Wilbur Wright.
In the rest of the world the horizon line is fixed and the field behind the horizon line moves. Basically that field stays level with the horizon and the rest of the aircraft moves around it.
The attitude indicators in the MiG-29 show the attitude of the aircraft on a fixed field so it kind of works backwards. Just plain strange.
If the account of Gagarin diving down to the cloud deck and accidentally dipping into the clouds are true then he really set himself up for an ugly spatial disorientation scenario. If you are flying an aircraft in visual conditions then you tend to keep your head fixed straight up and down in relation to the earth for the first 25-40 degrees or so of roll. Anything than that and you begin to have a bit of tilt with relation to the world, which is no big deal in visual conditions.
In instrument conditions (flying through clouds) you are supposed to lock your head straight up and down in the cockpit focusing on your instruments. Your head and aircraft are one unit moving in unison.
If you enter the clouds with your head oriented to the horizon and not the instruments, most pilots can salvage their spatial orientation pretty quickly. If you enter the clouds with your head oriented to neither the aircraft of the horizon, you are going to face challenges. That is one of the reasons, even in high performance aircraft, you are instructed to limit your angle of bank to 30 degrees when flying instruments.
I had the unfortunate experience of being on a mishap investigation for a pilot that did just that. He made a high angle of bank turn just as he was entering the clouds and had some kind of spatial disorientation episode. There was probably some expectation of punching out of the bottom of the clouds at a reasonable altitude, but he came down in a localized snow storm that went all the way to the ground. He hit the ground roughly 70 degrees off his assigned heading that he had turned to and then drifted off of.
i had a couple buddies of mine that were on vectors back to the field and the controller took them too low for the sector they were in. They didn’t hit the mountain, but they saw it fly by. The controller (military) lost all his qualifications, despite being the senior guy in the office.
Boy, just reading your account made me...er...”pucker”...:)
No room for mistakes there...BTW...thanks for your service. I was flight deck crew...
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