1973 Paris Air Show Tu-144 crash

The 1973 Paris Air Show Tu-144 crash was the destruction of the second production Tupolev Tu-144 at Goussainville, Val-d'Oise, France, which killed all six crew members and eight people on the ground.[1][2] The crash, at the Paris Air Show on Sunday, 3 June 1973,[3] damaged the development program of the Tupolev Tu-144.[4]

1973 Paris Air Show Tu-144 crash
СССР-77102, the Tu-144S involved in the accident, seen at the 1973 Paris Air Show, the day before the accident
Accident
Date3 June 1973
SummaryCrashed after in-flight structural failure
SiteGoussainville, Val-d'Oise
49°01′33″N 2°28′28″E
Total fatalities14
Total injuries60
Aircraft
Aircraft typeTupolev Tu-144S
OperatorAeroflot
RegistrationСССР-77102
Flight originParis–Le Bourget Airport
DestinationParis–Le Bourget Airport
Occupants6
Passengers0
Crew6
Fatalities6
Survivors0
Ground casualties
Ground fatalities8
Ground injuries60

One theory is that a French Mirage jet sent to photograph the aircraft without the knowledge of the Soviet crew caused the pilots to take evasive maneuvers, resulting in the crash.[5] Another theory is that in a rivalry with the Anglo-French Concorde, the pilots attempted a maneuver that was beyond the capabilities of the aircraft.[5][6]

Accident
СССР-77102, the Tupolev Tu-144S involved in the accident, photographed in May 1973

The aircraft involved was Tupolev Tu-144S СССР-77102, manufacturer's serial number 01–2, the second production Tu-144.[7] The aircraft had first flown on 29 March 1972.[8] This aircraft had been modified compared to the initial prototype to include landing gear that retracted into the nacelles, and retractable canards.[9] The pilot was Mikhail Kozlov,[6] and the co-pilot was Valery M. Molchanov.[10] Also on board were G. N. Bazhenov, the flight navigator, V. N. Benderov, deputy chief designer and engineer major-general, B. A. Pervukhin, senior engineer, and A. I. Dralin, flight engineer.[11] The crash occurred in front of 250,000 people toward the end of the show.[6]

During the show, there was a "fierce competition between the Anglo-French Concorde and the Russian Tu-144".[6] The Soviet pilot, Mikhail Kozlov, had bragged that he would outperform the Concorde.[6] "Just wait until you see us fly," he was quoted as saying. "Then you'll see something."[12] On the final day of the show, the Concorde, which was not yet in production, performed its demonstration flight first.[6] Its performance was later described as being unexciting, and it has been theorized that Kozlov was determined to show how much better his aircraft was.[12]

Once in flight, the Tu-144 made what appeared to be a landing approach, with the landing gear out and the "moustache" canards extended, but then with all four engines at full power, climbed rapidly. Possibly stalling below 2,000 ft (600 m), the aircraft pitched over and went into a steep dive.[6] Trying to pull out of the subsequent dive with the engines again at full power, the aircraft broke up in mid-air, possibly due to overstressing the airframe. The left wing came away first, and then the aircraft disintegrated and crashed,[6][8][10] destroying 15 houses,[13] and killing all six people on board the Tu-144 and eight more on the ground.[8] Three children were among those killed, and 60 people received severe injuries.[14]

Aftermath

The crew of the Tu-144 were buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow on 12 June 1973.[15]

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 (25 mi) northwest of Marseille.[16]

The crash reduced the enthusiasm of Aeroflot for the Tu-144. 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.[7] 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, rising service costs and the slump in the aviation industry following the September 11 attacks.[17]

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.[10] 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. While the investigation's outcome was largely suitable for both sides, it gave rise to a number of alternative theories.[18]

Theories
Flight profile of Tu-144 and Mirage IIIR[18]
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 impacting 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,[19] 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.[14] The flight of the Mirage was denied in the original French report of the incident, 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."[14] Howard Moon, author of Soviet SST: The Techno-Politics Of The Tupolev-144, stresses that last-minute changes to the flight schedule would have disoriented the pilots in a cockpit with notably poor sightlines. 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.[14] 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.[5]

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 of the electronics flight controls which deflected the elevons 10 degrees down after the retraction of the canards, causing the sudden dive.[8]

Bob Hoover, a pilot on the supersonic Bell X-1 program, believed that the rivalry of the Tu-144 and Concorde led the pilot of the Tu-144 to attempt a maneuver 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 10,000 [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."[5]

References
  1. "Russian SST crashes". Spokesman-Review. (Spokane, Washington, U.S.). Associated Press. 4 June 1973. p. 1.
  2. "Soviet SST crash kills 14". Milwaukee Sentinel. (Wisconsin, U.S.). UPI. 4 June 1973. p. 1.
  3. "15 killed as Russia's Concorde explodes". Glasgow Herald. 4 June 1973. p. 1.
  4. " Crash of the Tupolev 144 on 3 June 1973 video." ORTF, 8:00 p.m. news broadcasting, 3 June 1973, on the INA website , ina.fr.
  5. Zarakohvich, Yuri (7 August 2000). "The Concordski TU-144: A blast from the past". Time Europe. Archived from the original on 15 August 2000. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
  6. Gunston, Bill (7 June 1973). "Concordski and Concorde". New Scientist. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
  7. Greenwood, John T. (1998). "The Designers and their Aircraft". In Robin D. S. Higham; John T. Greenwood; Von Hardesty (eds.). Russian aviation and air power in the twentieth century. Routledge. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-7146-4784-5.
  8. Ranter, Harro. "СССР-77102 Accident description". aviation-safety.net. Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 26 December 2010.
  9. Owen, Kenneth (2001). "The rivals". Concorde: story of a supersonic pioneer. Science Museum. p. 154. ISBN 978-1-900747-42-4.
  10. "Tu-144 crash investigation". Flight International: 908. 14 June 1973.
  11. "Once Upon a Time". Kommersant. 3 June 2006. Archived from the original on 12 October 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
  12. "DISASTERS: Deadly Exhibition". Time. 18 June 1973. Archived from the original on 7 December 2008.
  13. "Paris Air Show: 100 years of Paris air show highlights". Flightglobal. 5 June 2009. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
  14. "Supersonic Spies." Nova PBS air date: 27 January 1998.
  15. "Tu-144 investigation continues". Flight International. 103 (3354): 938. 21 June 1973. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
  16. "Display dangers". Flight International. 103 (3353): 910. 14 June 1973.
  17. "Concorde grounded for good". BBC News. 10 April 2003. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  18. Bliznyuk, Valentin; et al. (2000). "3.14. Катастрофа самолета Ту-144 (бортовой номер 77102) в Париже". Правда о сверхзвуковых пассажирских самолетах [Reality of supersonic passenger airplanes]. Moscow: Moskovsky Rabochiy. ISBN 5-239-02044-2.
  19. Smith, Patrick (24 June 2005). "Ask the pilot". Salon. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
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