Tragedy of first man to step foot in space as mysterious death remains unsolved

Some 64 years ago to the day - April 12, in 1961 - Yuri Gagarin rocketed into space as the first human to orbit our planet. Yet more than 60 years after he made his way into history books, his subsequent death remains something of a mystery.

When Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin became the first man to step foot in space he was declared a national hero by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev who barred him from going into space again because he didn’t want a national hero to die on a future mission. But despite the government’s precautions, Yuri died just six years later.

Yuri Gagarin was 34 when he died in a routine training flight less than seven years after becoming the first man in space when he was just 34. He was killed during a routine training flight in his MiG-15 jet near the Chkalovsky aerodrome just outside Moscow but what happened exactly?

His colleague Vladimir Aksyonov spoke to news agency Agence France-Presse about the events of March 27 1968, before he died. He was also due to fly that day but his flight was cancelled. When Yuri and his co-pilot were no longer responding to radio calls, helicopter crews were sent out to search for them.

Sadly, they found parts of the wreckage 65 kilometres from the aerodrome and Yuri’s body was recovered the next day. It was a shock to the nation, which declared a day of national mourning - the first time such an honour had been given to someone who was not a head of state.

An official report on the incident claims the plane had to make a sudden manoeuvre because of a “change in the situation in the air,” which led to the crash, according to website National Post. But not everyone is convinced this is what happened with some people speculating he could have been killed by the KGB.

Alexander Glushko, a historian of the Soviet space industry, told AFP: “The report of the official commission, which was 29 volumes, was never published. This pushed colleagues and experts to start their own research.” In 2011, the 50th anniversary of his spaceflight, newly declassified documents said Yuri or his co-pilot had manoeuvred sharply to avoid a weather balloon.

But cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, a member of a commission investigating Yuri’s death, was conducting parachute training sessions that day when he heard “two loud booms in the distance.”

Had another aircraft passed within 10 or 20 metres of Gagarin’s plane while breaking the sound barrier, with the resulting turbulence sending the MiG into an uncontrolled spin? He believes the first boom he heard was the jet breaking the sound barrier and the second was the crash.

In 2017 he claimed to state news agency RIA Novosti: “I saw a declassified document of the investigation that confirmed (this).” And he also revealed why, claiming the commission had covered up the truth to protect the other plane’s pilot, whom he refused to name but referred to as “quite famous” and currently “old and sick.”

“This is no longer a secret: it is about negligence and a violation of aviation rules,” he added. Sadly, we may never know what really happened to the first man in space as Alexi died a year later, in 2019.

Yuri's wife Valentina later wrote a book in his memory called 108 Minutes and a Whole Life. His daughter Elena Gagarina has also spoken about her father's life and legacy, describing his death as a sudden and tragic event that profoundly impacted her and her family.