1973 Paris Air Show Tupolev Tu-144 crash

Aviation accident August 2019 1973 Paris Air Show Tupolev Tu-144 crash Accident 1973 06 Bourget TU144 (13).jpg СССР-77102, the Tupolev Tu-144 at the Paris Air Show, 2 June 1973, the day before the crash 3 June 1973 Crashed after in-flight structural failure Goussainville, Val-d'Oise 49 01 33 N 2 28 28 E type:event_region:FR-95 inline,title 14 60 Tupolev Tu-144S Aeroflot СССР-77102 Paris–Le Bourget Airport Paris–Le Bourget Airport 6 6 6 0 8 60 On 3 June 1973, the second production model of the Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 airliner was destroyed in a crash during the 1973 Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport. Whilst performing a display that included extreme manoeuvres, the aircraft stalled at low altitude, and during the attempted recovery disintegrated in mid-air, falling on the town of Goussainville, Val-d'Oise, France, killing all six crew members and eight people on the ground.https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8B5OAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Pe0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6732%2C1543669 Spokesman-Review Spokane, Washington, U.S. Associated Press Russian SST crashes 4 June 1973 1 27 November 2021 6 May 2018 https://web.archive.org/web/20211127151431/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8B5OAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Pe0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6732%2C1543669 live https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=A_EjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dREEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6853%2C605260 Milwaukee Sentinel Wisconsin, U.S. UPI Soviet SST crash kills 14 4 June 1973 1 June 2023 InternetArchiveBot yes https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uJVAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IaUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2298%2C524076 Glasgow Herald 15 killed as Russia's Concorde explodes 4 June 1973 1 2 December 2021 6 May 2018 https://web.archive.org/web/20211202173314/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uJVAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IaUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2298%2C524076 live The crash ended the development program of the Tupolev Tu-144." Crash of the Tupolev 144 on 3 June 1973 video." https://web.archive.org/web/20100415235237/http://www.ina.fr/economie-et-societe/justice-et-faits-divers/video/CAF94004211/accident-tupolev-144-au-salon-du-bourget.fr.html 15 April 2010 ORTF, 8:00 p.m. news broadcasting, 3 June 1973, on the INA website , ina.fr. The official inquest did not conclusively determine the cause of the accident, and several theories have been proposed. Accident thumb|left|СССР-77102, the Tupolev Tu-144S involved in the accident, photographed on 18 May 1973, 2 weeks before the crash thumb|left|СССР-77102, the Tu-144S involved in the accident, seen at the 1973 Paris Air Show, the day before the accident The aircraft involved was Tupolev Tu-144S СССР-77102, manufacturer's serial number 01–2, the second production Tu-144.Greenwood John T. Robin D. S. Higham John T. Greenwood Von Hardesty Russian aviation and air power in the twentieth century https://books.google.com/books?id=cpynoFM-Jf4C&pg=PA174 1998 Routledge 174 The Designers and their Aircraft 978-0-7146-4784-5 24 November 2022 5 November 2016 https://web.archive.org/web/20221124232346/https://books.google.com/books?id=cpynoFM-Jf4C&pg=PA174 live It was first flown on 29 March 1972.Ranter Harro СССР-77102 Accident description http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19730603-0 26 December 2010 aviation-safety.net Aviation Safety Network 30 January 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20120130232333/http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19730603-0 live This aircraft had been modified compared to the initial prototype to include landing gear that retracted into the nacelles and retractable canards.Owen Kenneth Concorde: story of a supersonic pioneer https://books.google.com/books?id=VzNUJlX7CXoC&pg=PA154 2001 Science Museum 978-1-900747-42-4 154 The rivals The pilot was Soviet test pilot Mikhail Vasilyevich Kozlovhttps://books.google.com/books?id=gnI8IGtKy64C&pg=PA595 Concordski and Concorde Gunston Bill Bill Gunston 7 June 1973 New Scientist 27 December 2010 and the co-pilot was Valery M. Molchanov. Also on board were flight navigator G. N. Bazhenov; V. N. Benderov, deputy chief designer and engineer major-general; B. A. Pervukhin, senior engineer; and A. I. Dralin, flight engineer.http://www.kommersant.com/p-8675/r_533/Events/ Once Upon a Time 3 June 2006 Kommersant 27 December 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20121012145346/http://www.kommersant.com/p-8675/r_533/Events/ 12 October 2012 dead The crash occurred in front of 250,000 spectators near the end of the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget airport, the world's largest air show and aerospace industry exhibition event. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aerospace/2017-11-08/2017-dubai-airshow-expected-be-largest-yet 2017 Dubai Airshow Expected To Be Largest Yet Peter Shaw-Smith November 8, 2017 AIN 2017-11-10 2017-11-10 https://web.archive.org/web/20171110225252/https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aerospace/2017-11-08/2017-dubai-airshow-expected-be-largest-yet live thumb|left|СССР-77102 on a taxiway at Le Bourget while Concorde takes off in the background, 2 June During the show there had been "fierce competition between the Anglo-French Concorde and the Soviet Tu-144". The Soviet pilot, Mikhail Kozlov, had bragged that he would outperform the Concorde. "Just wait until you see us fly," he was quoted as saying. "Then you'll see something."http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910688,00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20081207140402/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910688,00.html dead 7 December 2008 DISASTERS: Deadly Exhibition Time 18 June 1973 On the final day of the show, the Concorde, which was not yet in production, performed its demonstration flight first. Its performance was later described as unexciting, and it has been suggested that Kozlov was determined to show how much better the Soviet aircraft was. After several minutes in the air performing aerobatic manoeuvres in its second demonstration flight of the show, the Tu-144 flew a high-speed pass above the runway with the landing gear out and the "moustache" canards extended. Then, with all four engines at full power, it went into a steep and rapid climb. Below 2000 ft m -2 the aircraft stalled and fell into a steep dive. As the pilot tried to pull out of the dive at 400 ft with the engines at full power, "the entire left wing outboard of the left-hand engines broke away. The aircraft snap-rolled left and inverted, overload stresses fractured the fuselage forward of the wing, and fuel vapour ignited."https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/tu-144-crash-puzzle-persists-50-years-after-fatal-paris-display/153782.article Flight Global: Tu-144 crash puzzle persists 50 years after fatal Paris display 20 June 2023 David Kaminski Morrow 12 July 2024 The aircraft broke apart in mid-air and crashed in flames on the town of Goussainville, eight kilometres north of Le Bourget, destroying 15 houseshttp://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/06/05/327190/paris-air-show-100-years-of-paris-air-show-highlights.html Paris Air Show: 100 years of Paris air show highlights 5 June 2009 Flightglobal 27 December 2010 11 August 2011 https://web.archive.org/web/20110811135244/http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/06/05/327190/paris-air-show-100-years-of-paris-air-show-highlights.html live and killing all six people on board the Tu-144 and eight more on the ground. Three children were among those killed and 60 people received severe injuries. Aftermath The crew of the Tu-144 were buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow on 12 June 1973.http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1973/1973%20-%201708.html Tu-144 investigation continues 21 June 1973 Flight International 103 3354 938 27 December 2010 3 November 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20121103111447/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1973/1973%20-%201708.html live Following the crash, Marcel Dassault called for the 1975 Paris Air Show to be held at Istres, which is situated in open country 40 km on northwest of Marseille.Display dangers Flight International 3353 103 14 June 1973 910 http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1973/1973%20-%201650.html 11 April 2009 26 December 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20090411162732/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1973/1973%20-%201650.html live The crash eroded enthusiasm surrounding the Tu-144, which was already in decline. Although not a major factor within the Soviet Union, environmental concerns about the supersonic transport (SST) concept were increasing in the West.Moon 1989 168 Earlier in the year, government agencies in the U.S. and U.K. had issued forecasts that SST per-seat operating costs would substantially exceed those of conventional airliners for the foreseeable future, and a U.K. government report said the Tu-144 would have even higher per-seat operating costs than Concorde.Moon 1989 171–172 Historian Howard Moon speculates that these factors—together with continuing technical problems, an overextended Tupolev design bureau, high development costs coupled with a scarcity of alternate applications for Tu-144 technologies, and high fuel prices in the West stemming from the 1973 oil crisis a few months later—prompted Soviet leaders to deprioritize the aircraft's service entry with Aeroflot, as its value as a prestigious symbol of Soviet technical prowess had diminished.Moon 1989 168–170 By 1975, the Soviet aviation industry had pivoted to promotion of new conventional subsonic airliners, the Yakovlev Yak-42 and Ilyushin Il-86.Moon 1989 170,173 Restrictions on the Tu-144 following the Paris Air Show crash meant that it only saw limited service during 1977 and 1978, and it was finally withdrawn following another crash in May 1978. The Tu-144's rival, the Concorde, went on to serve with British Airways and Air France for 30 years afterwards, being finally withdrawn from service in 2003 due to low passenger numbers following the crash of Flight 4590 (coincidentally also within the vicinity of Le Bourget), rising service costs and the slump in the aviation industry following the September 11 attacks.2003-04-10 Concorde grounded for good BBC News https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2934257.stm 2020-09-09 11 August 2025 https://web.archive.org/web/20250811000400/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2934257.stm live Causes Investigation The accident was investigated by the DTCE, part of the French military, which was responsible for accidents involving prototype aircraft in France. The wreckage was recovered to a hangar at Le Bourget, with some of it being flown by an Antonov An-22 to the Soviet Union.Tu-144 crash investigation Flight International 14 June 1973 908 http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1973/1973%20-%201648.html 3 November 2012 26 December 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20121103110930/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1973/1973%20-%201648.html live Moon writes that the investigation was clouded by political considerations from the outset; the Soviets were distrustful of the French proposal to reconstruct the wreckage in the hangar, being unfamiliar with the technique, and the French had been actively seeking Concorde overflight rights in the Soviet Union. An exoneration of the Tu-144 from a technical and design standpoint was in the political interests of both countries.Moon 1989 159,171 Throughout the investigation, the Soviets strenuously objected behind the scenes against French attempts to issue firm conclusions.Moon 1989 159–160 The official report from the French investigative commission, produced in collaboration with Soviet experts, proposed a hypothesis involving a French jet plane in proximity and an unsecured Tu-144 crew member with a film camera, which might have inadvertently blocked the controls during an evasion manoeuvre. However, due to a lack of concrete evidence supporting this theory, the commission concluded that the exact cause of the disaster remains undetermined.Moon 1989 160–161 At the same time, the report specifically stated that there was "no abnormality in either the airliner's design or the general functioning of the aircraft and its systems", and it ruled out inadequate structural design as a cause.Moon 1989 171 While the investigation's outcome was largely suitable for both sides, it gave rise to a number of alternative theories. Theories thumb|upright=2|Flight profile of Tu-144 and Mirage IIIRBliznyuk Valentin Vasiliev Leonid Valentin Bliznyuk 1 Правда о сверхзвуковых пассажирских самолетах ru Reality of supersonic passenger airplanes 2000 Moskovsky Rabochiy Moscow 5-239-02044-2 3.14. Катастрофа самолета Ту-144 (бортовой номер 77102) в Париже http://www.testpilot.ru/review/sst/3/crash.php http://www.testpilot.ru/review/sst/ 5 June 2023 3 June 2023 https://web.archive.org/web/20230605074758/https://testpilot.ru/review/sst/ live thumb|A French Dassault Mirage IIIR fighter jet. Shortly before the accident, a Mirage IIIR had taken off from the airport. A theory for the incident suggests that the Tu-144 swerved to avoid the Mirage and lost control, breaking up before striking the ground. One theory is that the Tu-144 maneuvered to avoid a French Mirage chase plane that was attempting to photograph its unique canards,https://www.salon.com/2005/06/24/askthepilot142/ Ask the pilot Smith Patrick 24 June 2005 Salon 27 December 2010 27 August 2020 https://web.archive.org/web/20200827210530/https://www.salon.com/2005/06/24/askthepilot142/ live which were advanced for the time, and that the French and Soviet governments colluded with each other to cover up break-up of the plane during a pull-up maneuver. The flight of the Mirage was denied in the original French report of the incident,June 2023 perhaps because it was engaged in industrial espionage. More recent reports have admitted the existence of the Mirage (and the fact that the Soviet crew were not told about the Mirage's flight), although not its role in the crash. However, the official press release did state: "though the inquiry established that there was no real risk of collision between the two aircraft, the Soviet pilot was likely to have been surprised"."Supersonic Spies." https://web.archive.org/web/20231105053428/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2503supersonic.html 5 November 2023 Nova PBS air date: 27 January 1998. Moon stresses that last-minute changes to the flight schedule, combined with "sloppy" air traffic control, would have disoriented the pilots in a cockpit with notably poor sightlines; Moon notes that the flight crew had prepared a choreographed flight demonstration routine that had been practiced at least six times before leaving the Soviet Union, but it had to be discarded because of the scheduling changes.Moon 1989 160,162 He also cites an eyewitness who claims the co-pilot had agreed to take a camera with him, which he may have been operating at the time of the evasive maneuver.Moon 1989 160–161 The initial approach may have been an attempted landing on the wrong runway, which occurred due to a last-minute shortening of the Tu-144's display.http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/0807/concordski.html https://web.archive.org/web/20000815065943/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/0807/concordski.html dead 15 August 2000 The Concordski TU-144: A blast from the past Zarakohvich Yuri 7 August 2000 Time Europe 27 December 2010 An important contributing factor could be that control surfaces deflection had been de-restricted before the flight, perhaps to allow a more impressive demonstration, giving way for a bug in the electronics flight controls which deflected the elevons 10 degrees down after the retraction of the canards, causing the sudden dive. On 24 October 1973, the London Daily Telegraph published a report stating that a wrench fell into the recess around the control stick, jamming the aircraft flight control system.Moon 1989 160 A self-styled group calling itself "Liberation of Rudolf Hess" claimed to have blown up the Tu-144 in protest of Hess's continued imprisonment at Spandau Prison. Hess's son rejected this claim, saying that he had never heard of the group.Moon 1989 171 Bob Hoover, for many years an airshow display pilot, believed that the rivalry of the Tu-144 and Concorde had led the pilot of the Tu-144 to attempt a manoeuvre that went beyond the abilities of the aircraft: "That day, the Concorde went first, and after the pilot performed a high-speed flyby, he pulled up steeply and climbed to approximately 10000 feet before leveling off. When the Tu-144 pilot performed the same manoeuvre he pulled the nose up so steeply I didn't believe he could possibly recover." References Citations Bibliography Moon Howard 1989 Soviet SST: the technopolitics of the Tupolev Tu-144 New York City Orion Books 0-517-56601-X External links Accident description on the Aviation Safety Network Aviation France Russia Category:1973 in Paris Category:Aviation accidents and incidents involving military aircraft Category:Aviation accidents and incidents involving the Tupolev Tu-144 Category:Aviation accidents and incidents at air shows Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in 1973 Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in France Category:Disasters in Paris Category:France–Soviet Union relations Category:June 1973 in Europe Category:1973 disasters in France Category:Aviation accidents and incidents involving in-flight engine separations Category:History of Val-d'Oise Category:20th century in Île-de-France