The people who investigated and wrote the report were told not to publish their own conclusions because it could "unsettle" the nation. Shortly thereafter, Communist party head Leonid Brezhnev closed the investigation and deemed it top secret. In other words, it was pilot error, not a systematic or mechanical problem. Proposing several theories but never providing irrefutable evidence for any of them, the report said the pilots probably swerved to avoid hitting a weather balloon or a bird, which caused them to go into a tailspin from which they never recovered. In November of 1968, the USSR's State Commission filed a 29-volume investigative report that was basically inconclusive. With the world mourning, Soviet authorities hastily assembled a commission to determine the cause of the crash. His ashes were buried alongside other Soviet luminaries along the Kremlin Wall. That hope dissipated the next day when Gagarin's remains were found not far from the plane's wreckage. While Seryogin's body was identified, there was hope that Gagarin had ejected before impact. Around 3 p.m., crews found the burning, charred plane among the trees and snow of the Russian countryside. A few minutes later, Gagarin came over the radio to say he'd completed the exercise, which included barrell rolls and vertical loops, and was heading back to base.Īfter ten minutes of no sighting or communication with the aircraft, the base dispatched rescue teams to seek the jet. A little after 10 a.m., Gagarin and Seryogin took off in the two-seater jet and headed to the flight zone in weather conditions that were probably deteriorating. Always superstitious, Gagarin told the people around him this was a bad omen. It was a rainy and windy morning when he boarded a bus on bound for the airfield and realized he was missing his identification. Gagarin was scheduled to fly three practice missions in a Russian-built MiG-15 training jet that day-two solo and one with Seryogin, which was the day's first flight. By all accounts, his retraining was going well. (Prior to his days as a cosmonaut he had been a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force, so this was a formality.) Gagarin was stationed at Chkalovsky Airport, about 20 miles northeast of Moscow. He awoke early on Mato continue his "retraining" as a fighter pilot. There are things we know conclusively about Yuri Gagarin's final moments.
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