Russia has unveiled Friday the findings, “state secret” until today, from the commission that investigated the death of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who died in 1968 aboard of a Soviet MIG – a pilot error committed by the national hero in order to avoid an atmospheric probe.
On March 27, 1968, at the helm of a MIG-15 two-seat jet fighter trainer, the Soviet cosmonaut crashed along with his co-pilot in the Vladimir region, Northeast of Moscow, in circumstances still unclear.
The accident, occurred 7 years after Yuri Gagarin’s performance on April 12, 1961, when he became the first man into outer space, has shocked everybody, but the investigation that followed was classified as “state secret” by Soviet authorities until its status was changed and made public on Friday, after 43 years.
At the time when Russia celebrates with great pomp 50 years from Gagarin’s flight into outer space, a representative of the Kremlin archives department, Alexander Stepanov, read at a press conference a document extracted from the declassified file of the conclusions of the inquiry commission.
“The committee’s conclusions: according to the analysis of circumstances of the air accident and all investigation elements, the most likely cause of the disaster is a sudden maneuver (of the pilot) to avoid an atmospheric probe”, Stepanov said.
Another cause, but “less likely”, is that the Soviet pilot wanted “to avoid entering a cloud layer”.
A sign of the importance of this case, the conclusions were recorded in a decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR, dated November 28, 1968, marked with the stamp “state secret”.
Maintaining secrecy over this case during the Soviet era has fueled rumors and assumptions of the most diverse causes for Gagarin’s death, who remains one of Russia’s favorite heroes.
Some assumptions have evoked a second aircraft maneuvers that would have bothered the MIG-15 jet piloted by Yuri Gagarin and others have talked about a technical problem of the jet fighter aircraft.
Conspiracy theory advocates said that Yuri Gagarin was the victim of the KGB or other secret service.
Others say that the famous astronaut, jet fighter pilot, much too busy with his national hero status and role play in propaganda for the Soviet Union, simply lost his level of expertise required to fly such an aircraft.
Too valuable to the Soviets, Gagarin was forbidden for many years to fly, before obtaining the authorization to fly again.
Removal of state secret status for the documents on the investigation should lead to the elimination of some of these questions. “I hope this will put an end to speculation circulating in Russia, many of them in books of pseudo-history”, said on Friday, Alexander Stepanov.
Another representative of the Russian state, Deputy Director of Science State Archives, Larisa Uspenskaya, stressed that “over 200 documents and files were declassified, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s historic flight.
Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Russian Space Agency Roskosmos, said that all available documents related to this subject have been declassified. However, “a certain number of documents was not found”, Davydov said.