Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the earth, was killed yesterday in an aviation ‘’catastrophe.”
The crash also killed Col. Vladimir Seryogin, commander of an air-unit and a, member of the space backup team.
Both men will be buried in the Kremlin wall facing Red Square, the most honoured burial place in the Soviet Union.
Announcements of the deaths made today by Moscow Radio and Tass gave no details except to say the crash occurred during training flight.”
A radio announcer, moved by the news, repeated the official report several times during the morning. The announcements were interspersed with slow, funeral music from Tehaikovky and Scriabin.
Gagarin’s death was the second tragedy known to have hit the Soviet space programme within a year. Col. Adimir M Komarov was killed on April 24, 1967, when his Soyuz spacecraft crashed to earth.
Col. Seryogin was one of the many anonymous experts of the Soviet space programme. The announcement said he held the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Gagarin was a popular, handsome figure of 34 who acted as the main spokesman and celebrity to publicize the Soviet space programme. He also played a major role in training cosmonauts.
{{/usCountry}}Gagarin was a popular, handsome figure of 34 who acted as the main spokesman and celebrity to publicize the Soviet space programme. He also played a major role in training cosmonauts.
{{/usCountry}}He is survived by his wife Valentina and two daughters, Yelena and Galya, 9 and 7 years old.
Gagarin’s historic flight on April 12, 1961, propelled him from obscurity into the world spotlight. He remained a modest, unpretentious person despite his success.
Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934, in Gzhatsk district in the Smolensk region. The son of a collective farmer he went to school in 1941 but, like many children in the western parts of the USSR, had to discontinue his education because of the World War II.
Interested in flying from an early age, he took an international flying course at Saratov and on completing it in 1955 entered an aviation school at Orenburg.
Gagarin joined the Communist Party in 1960. He was an Air force officer when he orbited the earth in the Soviet spaceship Vostok.
His one-orbit flight four years later lasted only 108 minutes. Landing by parachute near the village of Smelo Kil he was quoted by Tass as saying.