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Gagarin and Seregin…
Near Kirzhach, Soviet Union (now Russia)
March 27, 1968
 Hero
of the Soviet Union...
It was a flight on a training combat plane. In the instructor pilot's cockpit
was test pilot Vladimir S. Seregin who was instructed to check on Colonel
Gagarin's preparedness for the resumption (after an eight-year-long interval) of
independent flights on a fighter. Gagarin's resumption of flights could have
given the start to a new fruitful period in his life. Many people say that he
was tired of being a celebrated figurehead, of being demonstrated as a "museum
relic". He dreamed of the second space flight, more challenging and a
lengthy one. Eventually, Gagarin managed to get enrolled into a team of the
first experimental space station.
At 10:19 in the morning, Colonel Gagarin, in the front seat and Seregin, in the
back seat, took off on a training flight and in their MIG-15, serial
number 612739 and callsign "625". The plane into the air moments after
completing a re-confirmation radio exchange.
Seregin was a senior test pilot and decorated military hero who had flown
more than 200 aircraft combat missions during World War II.
The MiG the duet was flying was built at the Vodokhod
factory in Czechoslovakia and delivered on March 19,1956. Over its service
life, it had a 2100 hours on the airframe life, and had flown 1113 hours.
The plane was flying between two thick layers of clouds. At 10.30, Gagarin
completed an exercise and received an okay for flying back to base, landing at
an airfield northeast of Moscow near the astronauts' training center at Zvyozdny
Gorodok, or Star Town. They were at an altitude of 16,380 feet, between two
layers of clouds, and were unable to see the ground.
On the radio from the control tower the two pilots heard that the altitude of
the lower cloud layer was 3,500 feet - although, in reality it was 1,550 to
1,950 feet. After that communications broke off.
While Colonels Gagarin and Seregin were making their approach, a much larger
jet, the Su-15 'Fishpot-C', passed within 2,000 feet of them. Its pilot was
apparently unaware of the close call, but the turbulence of the Su-11's powerful
jet wash sent the MIG-15 into an almost vertical dive.
In the Clouds...
 Still in the clouds, Colonels Gagarin and Seregin could not see the ground, but
on the basis of the flight controller's latest information, they believed they
were high enough to pull out of the dive without emergency measures. When they
finally came out of the clouds it was too late by two seconds.
Aleksey Leonov, a fellow cosmonaut and friend of Gagarin, was training nearby
for a potential lunar mission. "When I was in the air they asked me to
radio Gagarin's plane. There was no answer. And when I landed I found out that
it had been 45 minutes since they ran out of fuel and Gagarin had not come back
to the base. I ran to the control tower. General Kamanin was already there and
told me they were thinking the worst. They got a hold of Kirzhach and sent a
helicopter there. It found traces on the ground. In two hours the search party
was already there."
By the evening of the same day the fragments of the plane and the remains of
the pilots were discovered in a forest. Leonov recalled: "They found
Seregin's remains right away. But they only found Yuri's wallet and his map
board. So initially they thought that may he had catapulted. They were looking
for him all night. In the morning they found pieces of his jacket. Then they
knew for sure that Gagarin and Seregin had been killed."
The investigators searched the area by plane, hunting the pilots' white
dome-like parachutes - but they were nowhere to be found. The team later found
the crater in the thick of the snow-laden forest. Within 6 hours, they cordoned
off the crash site. The first specialists to examine the area on March 28 were
shocked. The crew had no parachutes. Their straps were not torn. They had been
cut off deliberately.
Digging for the Cause...
The "State Panel for Determining the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of
Soviet Pilot and Astronaut, Hero of the Soviet Union Colonel Gagarin and Hero of
the Soviet Union, engineer and Colonel Seregin" was established by the Soviet
Central Committee on March 28 – the day after the crash. The Panel consisted of
four sub-commissions:
- Flight Sub-Commission: examining the crew's flight
preparation, checking the pilots' organization and safety on
March 27;
- Engineering Sub-Commission: examining and analyzing the
MiG-15UTI aircraft;
- Medical Sub-Commission: evaluating the pilots' condition
before and during the flight, and the official identification of
the deceased;
- KGB Sub-Commission: determining if the catastrophe was the
result of a conspiracy, terrorism, or malicious Intent
Broken pieces of the MiG-15UTI were saturated in fuel, mixed with snow and
dirt. Soldiers combed the forests repeatedly searching for clues of what
transpired. They searched up to 5 kilometers from the crater to the east, south
and west; and up to 12 kilometers to the north. Three days after the
crash, KGB officers found the missing parachutes. The parachutes were found in
one of the villages nearby. Villagers had found the crash site and cut the
cords off and stole the parachutes thinking that their fabric could come in
handy some day.
The budding green grass was trampled by mid-April over a radius of three
kilometers from the crater. The ground was combed with a tiny sift nearby.
Remarkably, investigators were able to gather 90 percent of the aircraft.
After the investigation, all the found parts of the wrecked MiG-15UTI were
collected and stored in sealed barrels.
State Honors...
 The
remains of Gagarin and Seryogin were buried in the walls of the Kremlin on Red
Square, amidst a huge state funeral.
Enquiries continued for more than a year and did not produce a clear answer. All
cosmonauts flight training was suspended. In December of 1968, the State
Commission investigating Gagarin's crash publishes it report citing that pilot
error put the aircraft into a critical situation.
Nikolai Kamanin, the head of cosmonaut training in Soviet space program and the
person ultimately responsible, received a formal reprimand. Without
Gagarin and without any prospects of winning the space race, his own influence
and influence of Soviet Air Force on the space program deteriorated - while
American lunar program was steady under way. He retired in 1971.
Lingering Questions...
The answer to the cause of the crash has never been fully revealed or
determined - due in part to Soviet state secrecy. Numerous theories have been
advanced over the years, from a bird strike to crew drunkenness. A1986 inquest suggested that
the turbulence from a Su-11 ‘Fishpot-C’ interceptor using its afterburners may
have caused Gagarin’s plane to go out of control.
But, in 2003, KGB documents that were declassified revealed that actions of
air base personnel contributed to the crash. The report stated that an air
traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information, and that
when Gagarin flew, conditions had deteriorated significantly.
 The
documents also revealed that the ground crew also left 260 liter external fuel
tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin’s planned flight activities needed clear
weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded that Gagarin’s
aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move
to avoid another aircraft.
In 2005, an original investigator into Gagarin's mishap, Igor Kuznetsov,
hypothesized that a cabin air vent was accidentally left open. "The
half-opened cock and the quick descent in diving was not the crew’s fault,"
Kuznetsov said. "The cock could have been left open either by the technician or
the pilot who flew the plane before Gagarin. The men acted strictly according to
instructions."
In 2007, the Kremlin vetoed a new investigation into the death of Gagarin.
At the plane's crash site, a memorial obelisk and park has been erected, in
memory of the two aviators.
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