On March 27, 1968, at 10:19 a.m., Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Seryogin took off in a MiG-15 fighter to perform training exercises, but never returned. The Chkalovsky military airfield became the last place of takeoff for cosmonaut Gagarin and Seryogin, the commander of the aviation regiment for cosmonaut flight training.
Just 11 minutes after departure, the cosmonauts completed their training in the piloting zone and received permission to return. The flight route was not destined to come true, and instead of the Chkalovsky airfield, they ended up three kilometers from the village of Novoselovo (between the cities of Kirzhach and Pokrov, Vladimir region). A minute after the request, the MiG-15 crashed into the ground at a speed of 700 km/h and at an angle of 50 degrees.
The commission formed by the government tried to understand the cause of the tragedy the next day. Experts did not miss a single fragment or detail of the crashed aircraft.
After collecting and processing the data, the commission members came to the main version: in the last minute of their lives, the crew had to make a sharp maneuver to prevent entering the clouds or turning away from a ball-probe, but because of the decision made, the pilots parted with their lives.
Yuri Gagarin died at the age of 34, and Vladimir Seryogin at 45. In memory of them, a memorial complex "The site of the death of Yu. A. Gagarin and V. S. Seryogin" was erected, located in the Kirzhach district of the Vladimir region, in the Andreevsky churchyard. The "MiG-15" aircraft was also installed there - an exact copy of the one on which Gagarin and Seryogin made their last flight.
The memory of cosmonauts lives not only in Russia. As of March 2024, there are monuments to Yuri Gagarin and bronze busts in 68 countries. Sculptures can be found, for example, in countries such as: Argentina, Germany, Greece, Denmark, India, Italy, Kazakhstan, Canada, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Palestine, Ukraine, Croatia, Montenegro, Switzerland and Sri Lanka.
After the death of Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Seryogin in a plane crash on March 27, 1968, they were posthumously awarded high state awards. Yuri Gagarin was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and awarded the Order of Lenin. In addition, he received many other awards, including the title of cosmonaut pilot of the USSR, military pilot of the 1st class and Honored Master of Sports of the USSR. Gagarin was also awarded the highest orders and medals of various countries, such as Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Liberia and others. After his death, Vladimir Seryogin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star.
Today, March 27, 2025, a delegation from the Roscosmos State Corporation, led by General Director Dmitry Bakanov, honored the memory of the cosmonauts by laying flowers at the Kremlin Wall.
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