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In the 1950's, this is the pride of the Soviet Union.
A sleek new airliner, one of the first ever to be powered by jets.
It flies faster, further, and is a showcase of Soviet technology.
But there’s something wrong with this plane.
Because over the course of a few months, airliners just like this one have been involved in a
truly bizarre string of incidents.
These planes aren’t just crashing, they’re being thrown up into the sky, sometimes by
several thousand feet. Leaving investigators racing for answers.
The 1950’s saw the start of a boom in commercial air travel.
Flying had become safer, faster, and more comfortable.
And those who had the means, could now cross entire continents in just hours. Or travel
halfway around the world in less than a day.
Air travel had entered a golden age.
At least in the Western world.
Because over in the Soviet Union, flying was radically different.
Soviet airliners were at least a generation or two behind Western designs.
They were slower, smaller, and offered little in the way of comfort.
Even worse, they couldn't fly very far.
And in a country as massive as the Soviet Union, that was a problem.
Because flying across the country from Moscow to Vladivostok meant having to stop to refuel
at least six times.
The trip could take as long as fifty hours, and was made even more grueling aboard cramped
and noisy aircraft that couldn’t fly high enough to avoid rough weather.
In the early 1950s, the Soviet Union was in desperate need of a new, modern airliner.
But rather than just catching up to the West, they were about to make a massive gamble on
a new technology.
In 1952, the British stunned the world by introducing the first ever jet-powered airliner.
The de Havilland Comet flew nearly twice as fast as any airliner before it, and fifteen
thousand feet higher.
Developing it had been a massive effort requiring years of research and development.
And while jet engines were still relatively new and unproven, many could see they were
the next evolution in air travel.
Including one famous aircraft designer from the Soviet Union named Andrei Tupolev who
saw them as a way to bring Soviet air travel into the future.
A jet airliner like the Comet would cut flying times down by a third and enable air travel
on a mass scale.
The problem was, Soviet leadership saw jets as unreliable, fuel thirsty, and expensive.
An excess better left to greedy western capitalists.
What’s more, the Comet had taken the better part of 10 years and millions to develop.
Time and resources that Soviet leaders weren’t eager to invest.
But knowing this, Tupolev had a plan.
He promised top Soviet brass that he could build them a jet in just three years.
A reliable jet airliner with even more passenger capacity than the comet, built at a fraction of the cost.
What’s more, a Soviet-designed jet airliner
would prove to the world that the Soviet Union was every bit as advanced as the West.
It was an offer they couldn’t refuse.
But how do you build a state-of-the-art jetliner like the Comet in just three years?
Well, you start with a massive shortcut.
This is the Tu-16 bomber.
Built to rain havoc over Europe and for Tupolev, the basis of his new airliner.
Having just finished designing it for the Soviet Air Force, Tupolev figured he was already
halfway there.
He’d just need to widen the fuselage.
But he could keep the engines, even if they weren't the most efficient and a little loud.
He could also reuse wings.
Although better suited for high speed bombing runs, It would save engineering time.
The pilots might just have to land a little faster.
Same concept for the tail and vertical stabilizer.
They could largely be reused.
Landing gear, avionics and other components could also be plucked right off the bomber’s assembly line.
The heavy-duty military components would add up to nearly a hundred thousand pounds.
Making for one sturdy airliner.
Designed in record time, and built at a fraction of the cost, Tuplev would name the new airliner
as the Tu-104.
While Tupolev was putting the finishing touches on his new plane, it was becoming apparent
that the transition to jet travel wouldn’t be so straightforward.
By 1954, design flaws in the Comet caused a series of tragic crashes which ultimately
led to the aircraft’s grounding.
The Comet was banned from commercial flights for four years while investigators sorted
out the issues.
It meant by the time the Soviet Union’s new jet airliner made its first test flight
in June of 1955, the Soviets suddenly found themselves with the world’s only operational
jet airliner.
But rather than take it as a sign of caution, they jumped on the propaganda opportunity.
While the 104 was still undergoing flight testing in 1956, a delegation of Soviet leaders
flew to Britain aboard the new plane.
The rakesh-looking airliner caught many off guard.
Aviation experts and British news reporters still reeling from the Comet’s grounding
were kicked into a frenzy.
The press were convinced that the Soviets had leapfrogged years ahead of the west with
a much larger and technologically superior design.
For the Soviets, it was a propaganda windfall.
And it wouldn’t be the last time they showed off their new jet.
Over the coming months, 104s visited cities across Europe.
Each time, crowds greeted the aircraft and dignitaries were given an opportunity to marvel
at Soviet technology.
In 1957, a 104 even showed up to the Paris Air Show, marking the first ever appearance
by non-western built aircraft.
A few months later, the new airliner flew all the way to the United States for another
state visit, marking the first ever transatlantic crossing by a jet airliner.
For the Soviets, the 104 a huge propaganda win and quickly developing it out of a bomber
seemed like a masterstroke of genius.
But the first signs of trouble were already beginning to appear.
Compared to other airliners, the Tu-104 was a handful to fly.
Pilots complained about heavy, unresponsive controls.
And the aircraft’s enormous weight and highly swept wings made low speed flying particularly
challenging.
Landing at busy civilian airports was a white knuckle affair.
Pilots were so afraid of stalling, it was common practice to land the plane at higher
speeds than designed.
Stopping was another issue, the airliner had no air brakes, no thrust reversers, and a
weak set of wheel brakes.
A hastily deployed parachute was often the only thing that kept the airliner from continuing
past the runway.
But the complaints were brushed off by Soviet authorities.
That is, until 1958 when the airliner began exhibiting behaviors that were impossible
to ignore.
The first sign of trouble came in February, when a CSA 104 flew into turbulence, which
caused both engines to flame out.
Without power, the aircraft fell twenty thousand feet, before the frantic pilots managed to
relight the engines.
A month later, another 104 also ran into turbulent weather.
But this time, the aircraft was hurled up into the sky and the pilots couldn’t stop
it from climbing all the way to forty four thousand feet.
Higher than the plane should ever fly.
Eventually the aircraft stalled, and began tumbling back to earth before the pilots managed
to regain control.
Despite the near-disasters, Soviet authorities were quick to blame the pilots.
But the incidents continued.
In August, another 104 was mysteriously hurled up into the sky.
Again, the aircraft stalled.
But this time, the pilots couldn’t recover and tragically, there were no survivors.
Just two months later, a 104 flying between Beijing and Moscow was once again, hurled
into the sky.
This time, the pilot heroically radioed back details as they were happening.
While he couldn't save the aircraft, the information radioed back would prove pivotal.
Authorities could no longer ignore the bizarre series of accidents.
There was clearly something wrong with the plane.
But remarkably, they wouldn't ground the aircraft.
Instead, letting it continue carrying passengers while they were still working to uncover the
mystery.
Eventually investigators would come to realize that the cause was powerful updrafts that
the pilots couldn’t counteract.
And the aircraft’s bomber-derived origins were at least partly to blame.
The 104’s larger pressurized cabin was prone to having its center of gravity shifted rearward,
depending on how the aircraft was loaded.
This meant that there was a natural tendency to pitch upwards in an updraft and the 104
wasn’t powerful enough to counteract these forces, leaving the pilots helpless.
A number of emergency modifications were made and the aircraft was restricted from flying
above a certain altitude.
But not before another incident in 1959, when another 104 hit an updraft before the pilots
managed to recover.
A critical design flaw had cost 144 lives.
And although fixes were made, The aircraft would still go on to earn an
extensive rap sheet of other accidents.
The most common were runway overshoots, thanks the tricky nature of flying the heavy bomber
derrived airliner.
Nearly one out of every five Tu-104s that was built would end up destroyed in accidents.
But given the secretive nature of the Soviet Union, these incidents received little news
coverage.
Even so, the airliner developed a notorious reputation amongst the traveling public.
Even becoming the theme of a 1960’s folk song.
Like the British, the Soviets paid heavily for pioneering jet travel.
But by 1958, the Comet had been heavily redesigned and was back in service.
And the Americans had introduced their own jet airliner Any progranada value that the
104 once had was gone.
But the Soviet Union’s first jetliner played a vital role in modernizing air travel inside
the country.
To accommodate the jet, air traffic control systems were modernized, new terminals were
built, and runways through the soviet union were lengthened.
And the operational lessons learned from 104 would help pave the way for future Soviet
airliners, earning the 104 a spot amongst the world’s pioneering aircraft.
I’ve been busy working on my most ambitious video yet on the story of the most advanced
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