When urinary tract infections keep coming back

If you are prone to recurrent UTIs, you can head them off before they take hold.

Unless you’re in the fortunate minority of women who have never had a urinary tract infection (UTI), you know the symptoms well. You might feel a frequent urgency to urinate yet pass little urine when you go. Your urine might be cloudy, blood-tinged, and strong-smelling. For 25% to 30% of women who’ve had a  urinary tract infection, the infection returns within six months.

If you have repeated UTIs, you’ve experienced the toll they take on your life. However, you may take some comfort in knowing that they aren’t likely to be the result of anything you’ve done. “Recurrent UTIs aren’t due to poor hygiene or something else that women have brought on themselves. Some women are just prone to UTIs,” says infectious diseases specialist Dr. Kalpana Gupta, a lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Why some women get recurrent UTIs

The infections are usually caused by Escherichia coli, a bacterium that lives in the intestinal system. If E. coli are carried from the rectum to the vagina, they can enter the urethra (the tube that carries urine from the bladder) and infect the bladder.

Risk factors for UTI vary with age. Before menopause, the most common risk factors are sexual intercourse and use of spermicides. It’s thought that sex increases the number of bacteria in the bladder, and many experts advise women to urinate after sex to flush them out. Spermicides may kill off Lactobacilli, beneficial bacteria in the vagina, making it easier for E. coli to move in.

After menopause, certain physical changes help set the stage for UTIs. The numbers of Lactobacilli in the vagina naturally decline. The bladder also contracts less strongly than it once did, making it more difficult to empty it completely.

In both premenopausal and postmenopausal women, genes play a role as well. Having a mother or sister who has frequent UTIs is also a risk factor.

Preventing UTIs

These approaches have some evidence to support them:

• Drink plenty of fluids every day. Aim for about 2 to 3 liters.
• Use alternative contraception that does not include a spermicide.
• Empty your bladder immediately following sexual intercourse.
• Consider vaginal estrogen therapy for post-menopausal women.
• Wipe front to back, although this has not been scientifically proven to make a difference.

Antibiotics

Taking a low dose of one of the antibiotics used to treat UTI is the most common way of dealing with recurrences. However, bacteria may become resistant to an antibiotic overtime and it may not be effective in treating subsequent infections. “This is an area in which women can experiment and find which solution works for them,” Dr. Gupta says. There are several options if you have a prescription on hand:

• taking a low dose daily for six months or longer
• using only after you have sex
• waiting until you have UTI symptoms.

If you have recurrent UTIs, talk to your clinician. The two of you can come up with a plan that is likely to be effective for you.

Image: designer491/Getty Images

Recurring UTIs: Frequent and Chronic

Sometimes urinary tract infections recur, or happen again. Find out why this happens and how recurrent infections are treated.

By Lindsey KonkelMedically Reviewed by Bhargavi Patham, MD, PhD

Reviewed: March 24, 2020

Medically Reviewed

Do UTIs keep coming back?iStock

A urinary tract infection, or UTI, occurs when harmful bacteria enter the urinary tract and cause inflammation. The urinary tract consists of your kidneys, the tubes that go from the kidneys to your bladder, and the tube that carries urine to the outside when you urinate, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (1) Urine inside the urinary tract is normally sterile, but if any bacteria get in, it can cause an infection.

Urinary tract infections are the second most common type of infection that people get, notes the National Library of Medicine. (2) They account for nearly 10 million doctor visits every year in the United States, per the National Kidney Foundation. (3) When a UTI occurs more than twice in six months, or three or more times in one year, it is considered to be a recurrent urinary infection, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). (4) About 1 in 5 women will get a recurrent UTI, and women who have more than three UTIs are more likely to continue having them. (3) Men can also have recurrent UTIs, but this is not as common in men as in women. In many cases men with recurrent UTIs have some type of urinary obstruction.

RELATED: 8 Home Remedies for Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) Symptoms

What Causes Recurrent UTIs?

Bacteria can enter the urinary tract from the outside to cause a UTI to come back, or a recurrent infection can be caused by bacteria that remain in the urinary tract after a previous infection. Symptoms of recurrent UTI in men and women include the frequent urge to urinate, burning pain or pressure, cloudy or discolored urine, bloody urine, and chills and fever. (1) Children with UTIs are more likely to have fever without the other symptoms. (1) Common conditions that can lead to recurrent UTIs include: (4,5)

• Being in a nursing home or hospital
• Diabetes
• Kidney or bladder stones
• Having a catheter
• Previous urinary tract surgery
• Sexual activity
• Certain types of birth control, including use of diaphragm or spermicide
• Menopause
• Having an infected or enlarged prostate
• Being born with an abnormality of the urinary tract

Why Does My UTI Keep Coming Back?

Chronic or recurring UTIs may keep coming back due to one of the risk factors listed above. Use of spermicides for birth control, for instance, may kill off beneficial bacteria in and around the vagina, making it easier for harmful bacteria to enter the urinary tract. (4)

In some cases, what seem like recurrent UTIs may actually be another condition, such as kidney stones or interstitial cystitis, a painful bladder condition with no infection. If you think you’re getting recurrent UTIs, see your provider, who can help rule out another condition, notes ACOG. (6)

How Many Is Too Many UTIs?

Three or more UTIs in one year indicates a recurrent infection, according to the ACOG. (4)

Recurrent urinary tract infections are treated with antibiotics. A week or two after you finish the antibiotic treatment, your doctor may perform a urine test to make sure the infection is cured. (4)

Your doctor may also ask you about factors that increase the risk of a recurrent UTI, including: (4)

• Frequent sex
• A new sexual partner
• Diaphragm or spermicide use
• Young age at first UTI

How Are Chronic UTIs Treated?

If you have recurrent or chronic UTIs, your doctor may send you to a urologist who specializes in diseases of the urinary system. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, some of the ways that recurrent UTIs are evaluated and treated include: (7,8)

• Testing The doctor will want to take a urine sample to test for bacteria and white blood cells. It may be necessary to do special X-ray studies to see if there is an obstruction or stones in the urinary tract. A urologist may look into your bladder by passing a special scope through the opening into your bladder. This exam is called cystoscopy.
• Antibiotics for Treatment Normally, UTIs responds very well to antibiotics, and you may only need to take medication for a few days. For recurrent UTIs, antibiotics may be needed for 10 days or more.
• Surgery In some cases of prostate disease, stones, or other obstruction of the urinary system, surgery may be done to restore normal flow of urine and help clear up infections.
• Antibiotics for Prevention Some strategies to prevent recurrent UTIs with antibiotics include taking low-dose antibiotics for six months or taking antibiotics after sexual intercourse.
• Frequent Urine Testing Women who have recurrent UTIs may benefit from testing their urine frequently with a dipstick that warns of any bacteria in the urine.

While urinary tract infections, especially recurrent UTIs, can be a serious health problem that warrants a trip to your healthcare provider, recurrent UTIs are common and there are many effective treatments available. Some simple things you can do to help prevent UTIs include drinking lots of fluids, keeping the genital area clean, wearing cotton underwear, and wiping from front to back after a bowel movement or urination. (8)

Can Recurrent UTIs Be a Sign of Cancer?

Both UTIs and bladder cancer can cause similar symptoms, such as a frequent need to urinate and even blood in the urine, according to the University of Rochester Medical Center. (9)

According to the American Cancer Society, urinary tract infections, kidney and bladder stones, and other causes of chronic bladder irritation have been linked to bladder cancer.  (10) However, it’s not clear whether recurrent urinary or bladder infections can actually cause bladder cancer or whether they constitute a true risk factor for bladder cancer.

The biggest known risk factor for bladder cancer is smoking. (9) The risk of bladder cancer also increases with age. Most people who get bladder cancer are over the age of 55. (10)

If you think you may have chronic or recurrent UTIs, it’s best to get checked out by your doctor. Your provider can rule out other health issues, including bladder cancer, and get you the treatment you need to get rid of chronic UTIs.

Editorial Sources and Fact-Checking

1. Urinary Tract Infection. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. August 2019.
2. Urinary Tract Infections. National Library of Medicine. April 2019.
3. Urinary Tract Infections. National Kidney Foundation.
4. Urinary Tract Infections. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. February 2019.
5. Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). Mayo Clinic. January 2019.
6. Recurrent Urinary Tract Infection Prevention. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
7. How Do Health Care Professionals Diagnose a Bladder Infection? National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. March 2017.
8. How Do Health Care Professionals Treat a Bladder Infection? National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. March 2017.
9. Could Persistent UTI-like Symptoms Be Bladder Cancer? University of Rochester Medical Center. June 2015.
10. Bladder Cancer Risk Factors. American Cancer Society. January 2019.

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The last minute of Yuri Gagarin – Rossiyskaya Gazeta

On March 30, thirty-six years ago, in Moscow they said goodbye to a man who became an idol for millions. The unexpected death of national stars of the first magnitude is always a huge shock. It was experienced in the United States after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, similar feelings were experienced in England when Princess Diana died. And the tragic death of Gagarin, who by that time had become a citizen of the Planet, remains an unhealed wound in our common memory.

The MiG-15UTI jet trainer with dual control (airslang – “spark”), in which there were pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and Air Force Colonel Vladimir Seregin, crashed on the morning of March 27, 1968. Their remains were found 65 kilometers from the Chkalovsky departure airfield, in a birch grove, not far from the village of Novoselovo, Vladimir Region.

Over the past decades, this tragedy has been addressed by many authors of very different competencies and intentions. Among them were specialists in the field of aerospace technology, and independent (including facts) “analysts”, and frantic exposers of everything and everyone in our past.

This activity was involuntarily promoted (and continues to be encouraged) by two factors: the peculiarly understood freedom of speech as an opportunity for unlimited myth-making, as well as many years of suppression of the results that the official commission investigating the Gagarin-Seregin catastrophe came to.

In the meantime, 29 volumes marked “secret” were issued. But no, even the most brief conclusion about the causes and circumstances of the incident was not published. And everything that today can be at least remotely connected with the conclusions of the commission is the publications of Professor S. M. Belotserkovsky, head of the graduation project of Yuri Gagarin at the Air Force Academy. NOT. Zhukovsky. Immediately after the disaster, he was involved in the investigation as one of the experts, but only in the late 80s, with the active support of cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, did he have the opportunity to reveal some of the actual circumstances of the tragedy and make public his conclusions about its causes.

More than once the engine was cleaned, Three resources have long passed – Is it really that in the whole Fatherland They did not find the best wings for him?!

According to Belotserkovsky-Leonov, Gagarin’s plane got into a jet of a supersonic fighter flying nearby and fell into a tailspin. There were many who disagreed with this conclusion, and highly respected specialists in the aviation business came forward with denials. Among them is the pilot-cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy, who was rightfully considered the “chief corkscrewer.” This phenomenon was thoroughly studied by him both in theory and on his own experience. Beregovoi did not consider getting into a contrail the only possible reason for the MiG-15UTI to stall into a tailspin. Pilot-instructor Anatoly Kolosov, who taught Gagarin to fly even in his cadet years, did not agree with Belotserkovsky …

Be that as it may, in 1992 a book by S.M. Belotserkovsky “The death of Gagarin. Facts and conjectures”. And five years later, the same author, but in a new book, supplements his version of the catastrophe with new arguments. Academician Boris Chertok, the right hand of academician S.P. Koroleva: “It happened that there could be several probable reasons for this or that failure in complex large systems … So far, the version developed by Belotserkovsky – Leonov remains” the most probable “.

A few years ago, Professor Belotserkovsky died, he can no longer answer his opponents. And disputes among aviators and astronauts, aircraft technicians and aerodynamic specialists do not stop to this day. In early March, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of Gagarin’s birth, cosmonaut Vitaly Sevastyanov said that he was “75 percent” sure that the cause of the disaster was the collision of the aircraft with the probe, as a result of which the cockpit glass was destroyed . ..

a review of existing versions and turn to those factual circumstances that, for various reasons, were on the periphery of the investigation or were completely removed from the field of view of specialists.

Last “export”

On March 27, 1968, according to the plan of the air regiment, which provided special training for pilot-cosmonauts, Gagarin was to perform three control flights on a “spark” with an inspector in order to receive admission to independent training flights after more than three months break. The “non-flying” pause was mainly connected with the preparation of a thesis at the Academy. NOT. Zhukovsky.

Immediately after defending his diploma, Gagarin, as expected, underwent ground additional training for the resumption of flights, and on March 13 he already took to the skies. Over the next two weeks, he made 18 flights on the Spark, restoring his piloting skills (takeoffs, flights in a circle and into piloting zones, approaches and landings). And not with one, but successively with four controlling pilots. With him, a captain, two majors and a lieutenant colonel rose into the sky – from an instructor pilot to a squadron commander. During this time, his flight time amounted to more than nine hours – a quarterly, or even half-yearly norm for most pilots of the current Russian Air Force.

The final clearance for the resumption of independent flights for Gagarin had to be given personally by the commander of the regiment Vladimir Seregin – Hero of the Soviet Union, a brave and successful attack pilot during the Great Patriotic War. He graduated from the Zhukovsky Academy 15 years before Gagarin. It is also important that Seregin was the lead tester of the MiG-15UTI aircraft, and he had been in charge of the flight training of the first set of cosmonauts for almost five years.

On that ill-fated day, the flights of the Chkalovsky regiment began with a delay – they were waiting for a heavy aircraft of another aviation unit, which was carrying out a special mission, to land. This introduced some nervousness into the well-functioning mechanism of pre-flight instructions. In particular, because there was no data from the weather scout – he landed when Gagarin was already taxiing to the start.

Gagarin-Seregin’s aircraft (airborne No. 18) took off from the airfield runway at 10:19. The radio exchange with the flight director was conducted by a controlled pilot – Gagarin himself. His voice, recorded on the tape recorder of the command post, sounded calm and clear. Three minutes later, he reported that he had reached the climb line and received permission to climb, as planned, up to 4200 meters. Two minutes later, from the 625th – Gagarin’s callsign – a message was received about leaving the upper edge of the lower cloud layer, and two more minutes later – Yuri Alekseevich reported on the entrance to the pilot area N 20 and asked for “go-ahead” to work in it. Having received permission, he answered in a disciplined manner: “Understood, I am doing it.”

It was at 10:26. ..

And just four (!) minutes later, Gagarin, in the same calm voice, informed the ground about the end of the mission in the zone and asked for permission to turn around on the exit course (320 degrees).

Such a request was unexpected for the flight director. The performance of all elements of aerobatics in the zone usually takes at least 20 minutes. In previous flight shifts, Gagarin has already completed five such flights with different instructors.

But Yury Alekseevich’s voice was just as calm (this will later be confirmed by numerous examinations) as in the previous radio messages. Therefore, the flight director, a lieutenant colonel by rank, did not begin to find out the reason for this discrepancy from the two colonels, Heroes of the Soviet Union, and answered:

– 625th, I allow.

To which Gagarin, with his former normal intonation, said:

– Understood, I’m doing it.

These were the last technically recorded words of Yuri Alekseevich.

What did the “pit” show?

For the sake of objectivity, it must be admitted: both at the site of the plane crash, and then, when everything scrupulously assembled was delivered to Moscow research institutes of various specializations, colossal work was done. The temporal and other parameters of the collision of the Gagarin-Seregin aircraft with the ground have been reconstructed with a sufficient degree of reliability.

It happened 60-70 seconds after the report: “Understood, I’m doing it.” According to the cut of the tops of the trees, the direction of the axis of dispersion of the MiG debris and the readings of some pointer instruments (prints on the dials), it was found that the fighter crashed into the ground with a dive angle of 50 degrees at a flight speed of about 700 km / h and with a slight right bank. The rate of descent at the moment of impact with the ground was 145 m/s – twice as much as its average value from the initial height of 4200 meters to zero.

The elevator was in the dive recovery position, but not at the limit of its possible shifting range (32 up), but only at half of this limit. So, the control knob was taken “on itself” not to the stop. The overload on this vertical maneuver, which at that moment put pressure on the pilots (and, of course, on the aircraft structure), reached almost 11 times – each of the pilots “weighed” about a ton. The flight course when approaching the ground was fixed strictly to the south – almost in the opposite direction from the established direction of exit from the aerobatics zone.

Such “deadly” parameters, of course, could not be the result of the crew’s intentional actions, but were the result of an emergency situation that aggravated precipitously to a catastrophic outcome in just one minute.

Each rowed from himself

As is known, the State Commission was created to investigate the disaster. L.V. Smirnov, deputy chairman of the allied Council of Ministers, chairman of the State Committee for Defense Technology, member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, was appointed its leader. He was a prominent organizer of military production and, unfortunately, a technocrat to the core. His sympathies, no doubt, remained on the side of the manufacturers, and not the operators of any “brainchild” of the defense industry.

Colonel-General of Aviation P.S. Vershinin. He was oriented to soon replace his senior boss in a high position (which, by the way, took place a year later), therefore he behaved cautiously in the commission, not conflicting with representatives and curators from party and government instances and “tolerantly” treating them far from always constructive ideas and zigzags in the investigation.

Four target divisions (subcommittees) were formed in the State Commission.

Flight was headed by Lieutenant General of Aviation B. Eremin, an experienced aviation commander who went through the war and shortly before Gagarin’s death became head of the Air Force Flight Safety Service. It was created in order to somehow bring down the growing shaft of accidents in the military aviation of the USSR: every year then more than a hundred aircraft and helicopters crashed – tantamount to the loss of 3-4 air regiments! Eremin already had considerable experience in investigating air crashes and could well provide high-quality conclusions and recommendations from his subcommittee.

But then the general found himself in a difficult situation. Both he and his subcommittee were forced to work under the strict control of their immediate superior, Marshal Kutakhov, who, in turn, was heavily pressed by higher authorities. From there, specifically, although without written instructions, the flight part of the commission was oriented: do not focus on the shortcomings in the organization and management of this flight, and especially on the actions of the pilots. Any questions? No. Then get to work, comrades…

The second subcommittee – the technical one – was also led by General of the Engineering Service N. Mishuk. He was ex officio responsible in the Air Force for the condition and serviceability of aviation equipment. And, according to colleagues who knew him well, he was not only a competent specialist in terms of the real reliability of the military fleet, but also an experienced fighter in administrative battles at the highest level. Mainly, in those battles where it was necessary to disguise frank design and technological flaws, because of which people often died. The independent Flight Safety Inspectorate of the Armed Forces did not yet exist at that time – it was created from specially selected pilots and engineers only in 1977 and is subordinated not to the commander-in-chief of the Air Force, but to the Minister of Defense. And then the military research institute for the operation and repair of aircraft was also subordinate to General Mishuk – it was there, in Lyubertsy, that all technical examinations were carried out with the remnants of a crashed “spark”. Five sealed barrels – all that they could collect at the crash site – are still stored in the basements of the Research Institute … 18 there were no malfunctions and even individual shortcomings in the operation of all its instruments, mechanisms and systems without exception. This “reinforced concrete” presumption of absolute serviceability of equipment was repeated in almost all publications about the Gagarin disaster.

However, this conclusion is far from certain, experts believe. Yes, according to some details of the crashed UTI, it was possible to establish both the readings and the performance of a number of devices and systems. But – only at the time of the collision of the aircraft with the ground. But what happened in a minute or more, it was impossible to reconstruct from the remnants of equipment – there were not even primitive registrars on board the UTI.

Unfortunately, neither the flight nor the technical subcommittee considered this fundamental moment of the flight, which preceded the stall, punctually, taking into account accident statistics on this type of aircraft. And they did not consider it because of the three components of any flight “crew – aircraft – environment”, the study of the first two was, in fact, tabooed.

So they fell exclusively “on the environment” – from three sides, with the entire hypertrophied organism of the State Commission. In its third structural unit – in the so-called administrative-staff subcommittee – they clearly caught the given vector of the investigation, they immediately “cut through” where to look for the cause of what happened. Both pilots, and engineers, and especially staff administrators, began to unanimously look for external factors and reasons for the stalling of the “spark” into a tailspin.

Other planes of the Sereginsky regiment (a single MiG-17 in the neighboring aerobatics zone and a pair of MiG-21s that took off on their route after Gagarin) were successively put forward for this “wrecking” role, first, a mysterious fighter from the neighboring Ramenskoye airfield, allegedly flying through the area flights of the Chkalovsky airfield. Then birds, sometimes colliding with planes (only this happens at altitudes of no more than a kilometer). And finally, weather balloons. The subcommittee devoted a lot of time and effort to these versions, but none of them was ever confirmed.

In subsequent decades, more “modern versions” of the external causes of the disaster began to be put forward – malicious damage to equipment in preparation for flight, laying an explosive device in the “twin” pair, hitting it (by someone’s insidious order) from the ground, meeting with a UFO, impact some force fields and much more from the field of quasi-science fiction. All such hypotheses are convincingly refuted by those remnants of Gagarin’s “sparka”, which, we repeat, are scrupulously stored in Lyubertsy near Moscow.

As the saying goes, don’t look for a black cat in a dark room – it’s not there.

Flying desks

Much more reliable information about the reasons for the stalling of the MiG-15UTI and that particular aircraft with onboard number 18 can be gleaned from the statistics of aircraft accidents in parts where more than a thousand of these “sparks” were operated at that time. Admittedly, it was far from being an ideal aircraft in terms of its stability in flight. In the documents on its testing and subsequent adoption into service, then in numerous acts of investigation of catastrophes and accidents, roll instability and a predisposition to spontaneous stalling into a tailspin were systematically noted. In particular, when additional fuel tanks were placed under the wings, which worsened the aerodynamics of the aircraft. It was these tanks that were hung on Gagarin’s “spark”. The withdrawal of such an aircraft from a spin was obtained not by all pilots. To be more precise, many did not succeed. Other jet aircraft of the first generation also suffered from a similar disease – both here and abroad. Among them is an analogue of the UTI – the “spark” T-33 of the US Air Force, which was not accidentally nicknamed the “flying desk”: it claimed more than one hundred lives of its students.

During the first years of mass operation of the MIG-15UTI, pilots kept falling into a tailspin – this happened both in combat regiments and in aviation schools. Seeing this, the Air Force command decided to include the so-called “export flights” with instructors in the training program for fighter pilots. As explained then, to “familiarize trainees with the behavior of the aircraft in a tailspin and the subsequent withdrawal from it.” However, having existed for less than two years, this innovation was canceled as having not justified itself – the pilots continued to fall into a tailspin even more often. Both in training and solo flights.

Another unfavorable factor that seriously complicated the Gagarin-Seregin flight was the weather. Namely, clouds. On that day, in the pilot area, the clouds were solid (10 points) and two-layer. Before departure, the crew was informed that the lower edge of continuous cloud cover was 900-1000 meters. In fact, it was much lower – from 600 to 700 meters. Maybe it was these 300 meters that the pilots did not have enough to bring the car into horizontal flight? Here, it turns out, what turned out to be the morning delay with the departure of the weather reconnaissance…

Next. The working height given to the “spark” in the zone – 4200 meters – turned out to be between two layers of clouds – under the lower edge of the upper tier and above the upper edge of the lower one.

Under such conditions, the pilot is deprived of the most important supporting elements for maintaining spatial orientation – the natural horizon, the Sun and ground landmarks. For pilots who do not have constant piloting practice, flights in such conditions are limited or even prohibited.

It is possible that it was Vladimir Seregin who, having assessed the real weather situation in the zone, suggested that Gagarin shorten the program and return to the airfield. Like it or not, we will never know.

On the other hand, it can be said quite definitely that the initial stalling of the “twin” into a tailspin occurred during the exit maneuver from the zone – a turn to a heading of 3200 and a transition to a descent.

The thing is that the transition to a descent on a maneuverable aircraft (unlike a bomber or a transport aircraft, where they simply give the helm “from oneself”) is more difficult. First, they make a flip (wheels up), then – the handle “on themselves”, and the nose of the aircraft drops to the desired angle. Then another flip (the other half of the “barrel” – wheels down), and the plane dives. This technique allows the pilot to avoid the unpleasant effect of negative G, separating him from the seat. But this is not an easy maneuver, in some cases it was during its execution that a stall into a tailspin occurred.

After the first turns of the spin, the Sparky pilots, having spent some seconds to understand what had happened (what was it? why did it happen? where to turn it?), certainly tried to restore controllability of the aircraft. But it was here that he, uncontrollably descending, entered the upper edge of the lower tier of continuous clouds…

Modern fighters now have such a button – “Bring to the horizon”. The pilot of a MiG-29 or Su-27 spinning in the clouds pressed it – and the autopilot will bring the car out of roll and down into horizontal flight in any clouds. If only there was enough height!

UTI did not have an autopilot or such a rescue button. Nevertheless, the pilots (alone or together) brought the spinning “spark” out of the devil’s spiral. Now she dived almost without a roll, more and more increasing the rate of descent. A kilometer of height was “eaten up” in ten seconds – this is the duration of a phrase of seven to eight words. And then their luck changed …

If the lower edge of the clouds were at least a thousand meters from the ground, as it was reported on the pre-flight instructions, the pilots, having gone under the clouds, would have time to snatch the MiG from a dive – even though the aircraft gives drawdown at the bottom point of breaking the trajectory. But alas! The clouds turned out to be almost twice as close to the ground, and besides, there was snow and rain under them, reducing visibility…

For unknown reasons, the commission materials say nothing about the impact on the pilots during these last seconds of the flight of a huge overload. After all, even with its eightfold value, the pilot, even in an anti-g suit, loses his ability to work after a few moments. And Gagarin and Seregin, being in ordinary flight leather jackets, got into the elevenfold. Not so long ago, a young pilot on an L-39 aircraft in the aerobatics zone was late with the start of the exit from a dive, abruptly took the stick “on himself” and went to overload 8-9. The flight ended in disaster. It was unequivocally established that the pilot had passed out on the steep takeoff.

Based on the amount of data given in the act of the State Commission, and taking into account the information obtained during the investigation of similar incidents with other “sparks” (including modern ones that are equipped with on-board tape recorders that record the internal conversations of both pilots), it is possible to reconstruct the dynamics of the occurrence and the development of an emergency situation with the MiG-15UTI airborne N 18 aircraft at the last minute of its flight on March 27, 1968 years old.

One more important circumstance is worth mentioning when citing this tragic chronicle. In case of emergency leaving the “spark” of the MiG-15UTI, according to the instructions, the pilot in the rear cockpit, that is, the controlling pilot, should be the first to eject. Expert psychologists, as they say, who have eaten their teeth in communication with pilots, unanimously declare: Colonel Seregin, understanding with whom he is flying, realizing that Gagarin’s chances to leave second are catastrophically melting, he could not do this. The handles of his catapult, like those of Gagarin, remained in their original position…

Seven BEFORE and 36 – AFTER

Thirty-six years have passed since that tragic day. And only seven fit between “Let’s go!” and “Understood. I am doing…”

Only seven incomplete years were allotted to Yuri Gagarin to live in the rays of world fame. And he withstood a truly inhuman test with copper pipes. In the words of Professor Belotserkovsky, “this is a special, nowhere and never again reproduced psychological experiment.”

“I don’t want to be a monument – after all, a living person…” – Yuri Alekseevich himself once dropped in his hearts when he was once again dissuaded from flying.

To let or not to let the first cosmonaut into the sky, the chiefs argued for more than one year. After the death of Vladimir Komarov, and Gagarin was also his understudy, all doubts at the top disappeared. Let him sit on presidiums, meet with pioneers, defend his dissertation. ..

And what does it mean to excommunicate a pilot from flying?

– It’s like forbidding him to breathe, – Academician Vladimir Ponomarenko, a flight psychologist who knew the entire first cosmonaut detachment well, says with conviction.

A barely veiled protest comes through from a report to the head of the Cosmonaut Training Center, Major General N.F. Kuznetsov:

“I consider it morally unjustified,” writes Colonel Gagarin on December 2, 1967, “to be in the position of deputy chief for space flight training, not being able to fly myself and supervise the flight training of subordinates.”

– It was an aviation tradition, – confirms Valentina Ponomareva, who, together with Tereshkova, was trained in the cosmonaut corps. – Pilots do not respect non-flying bosses …

Kuznetsov sends the paper on command – Colonel General N.P. Kamanin. And in the end, Gagarin achieved the desired resolution. Meanwhile, “Annushka has already spilled oil” – the MiG-15 training fighter with additional external tanks and the fatal N 18 on the fuselage, was waiting in the wings at the Chkalovsky airfield . ..

PS.

When Tamara Dmitrievna Filatova, Gagarin’s niece, learned about the forthcoming publication in “RG”, she cautiously asked:

– Do you know that Felix Chuev has a poem “Coffins” – not published anywhere? I myself first heard it six or seven years ago from Lyudmila Ivanovna Krasnopolskaya, an employee of the Museum of the History of Cosmonautics. Tsiolkovsky, in Kaluga. It shocked me. And when I had a chance to meet with the author, I asked: “Why didn’t you publish it?” – “You understand, right after the tragedy it was simply impossible – no one would have dared. And now it seems to be irrelevant …”

Tamara Filatova works at the United Memorial Museum, which was created in the birthplace of the first cosmonaut. And when during the excursion he meets with understanding people, in response to their questions, it happens that he quotes words from that very poem. Felix Chuev agreed to this during his lifetime. At our request, Tamara Dmitrievna reproduced the poem – the way it was deposited in her memory.

Tired of mediocre fairy tales –

So many stories and legends.

Tired of market gossip,

Clinging to the monument.

So many sticky drunk rumors,

But that’s not what we’re talking about now.

And, as he gathered his courage,

I want to stop this lie.

Shut up! Don’t you dare! – Do you hear?

He was a pilot to the end.

If you can, after drinking,

He didn’t lose face anywhere.

I said about our Gagarin,

As if without further ado and “cheers”,

He flew on such a ruin,

That it’s time to landfill.

The engine was cleaned more than once,

Three resources are long gone –

Is it possible that in the whole Fatherland

The best wings were not found for him?!

It’s not the equipment’s fault,

The whole detachment flew on such –

On the “coffins” seized some time ago

From parts from other flying ones . ..

And the reason for the ridiculous disaster

in verse,

And in cases of judicial investigation –

Why did it happen so. ..

From the “RG” file

During the fifteen years of the most active operation of the MiG-15 UTI – from 1965 to 1979 inclusive – 99 accidents occurred with this aircraft: 25 accidents and 74 fatal accidents. Only in 1967 – just a year before the Gagarin-Seregin tragedy – 11 accidents were noted, including five disasters. In 1968-1974 – annually 5-6 tragic outcomes at training “sparks”. In 1975 – nine crashes of the MiG-15 UTI. This is to the question of how we conducted investigations, what lessons were learned and conclusions were drawn …

Member of the State Commission for Investigation of the Causes of the Disaster

Moscow, August 25, 2014, 09:54 – IA Regnum. Statements by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov about the involvement of the Flight Research Institute. M.M. Gromov to the death of Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Seregin are untenable and unreasonably harm the reputation of the LII, considers its oldest employee, former head of the institute, Professor Arseny Mironov. To a member of the State Commission for the Investigation of the Accident of the Gagarin and Seregin Crew, probably the only one still alive, 96 years. He is outraged by the one-sided coverage of the topic of Gagarin’s death in the press, and has repeatedly written about it in specialized aviation publications. And I am ready to confirm with documents: the Zhukovsky test pilot could not have been the cause of the disaster, but there were other factors that were hushed up in hot pursuit. Professor Mironov told the correspondent of news agency REGNUM about the important details of the investigation of the accident.

Recall that on June 11, 2013, Leonov told reporters that, according to some “secret commission”, on March 27, 1968 years old, an experienced Su-15 fighter, which took off from the LII Ramenskoye airfield in Zhukovsky, allegedly flew unauthorized at extremely low altitude into the flight zone where Gagarin and Seregin flew (near Kirzhach, Vladimir Region), turned on the afterburner, passed in front of their training fighter (UTI) MiG-15 and dumped it into a tailspin. Leonov added that he knew this pilot, but, pitying his poor health and advanced age, for 80 years, he would not publish his name, although he had been trying to declassify this information for 20 years.

– Arseniy Dmitrievich, who and how investigated the causes of the disaster ?

– Three sub-commissions were organized in the Government Commission: flight, technical and administrative. As part of the flight subcommittee (which studied the actions of the pilot, the characteristics of the aircraft, the trajectory and flight parameters), I was the only engineer among military pilots. I had a very good assistant – Konstantin Konstantinovich Kokkinaki, test pilot of the flight base of the OKB A.I. Mikoyan. The experts were Georgy Byushgens, head of the dynamics department of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI), leading experts of the Air Force Academy. N.E. Zhukovsky, GK Research Institute of the Air Force, combat units of the Air Force, cosmonauts. I had one advantage: I wrote everything in a notebook. This was contrary to the requirements of secrecy, but since I had previously participated in many different similar commissions, I decided to write. And I saved this notebook.

When Leonov’s version was published, my patience ran out, I began to carefully restore all these notes in my memory – and restored quite a lot of interesting things.

— Why did the topic of the cause of the disaster suddenly become relevant again after 45 years ?

– Leonov has been saying for a very long time, since 1968, that a certain Zhukovsky pilot was to blame for the death of Gagarin. Moreover, its version was dynamically developed. At first it was just a pilot who took off from the Ramenskoye airfield. Later, when presenting his thoughts, Leonov began to add: “I’ll name my last name later.” Of course, his statements were not published for a very long time.

I told the whole story to experienced test pilots more than once, showed the materials of the commission. They all unanimously, without any hesitation, say: “Of course you are right!” What Leonov tells could not be.

And so, Leonov’s article appeared in the scientific and technical journal “Polyot”. The mystery of mentioning a certain LII pilot without mentioning the surname alerted me. I wrote denials to the city newspaper Zhukovskie Vesti, and to the Aviapanorama magazine, and to other popular science publications. But their audiences are narrow.

The former deputy head of the LII, Major General of Aviation Anatoly Polsky, also remembers the investigation. Somewhere in the middle of 1968 he was invited by Nikolai Sergeyevich Stroyev, deputy chairman of the Military Industrial Commission under the Council of Ministers, and explained that the cosmonauts were dissatisfied with the performances of some members of the subcommittee and wrote a letter to Brezhnev. They complained that, they say, it is impossible to denigrate the memory of the dead, they asked to sort it out and call the members of the commission to order. Polsky worked for several days in an expert group chaired by General Mishuk. By a strange coincidence, he was also the chairman of the technical subcommittee. Polsky did not see the final document of this expert group, but the meaning of it was that it evaded a clear answer and did not give any clear summary.

Polsky and I decided to write a joint article for some popular newspaper. He believed that it was not necessary to fall too hard on Leonov, since he was an authoritative person. I say: “Anatoly Afanasyevich, I have never been a general, so these fears do not bother me. You and I are pensioners – and who can cling to us? Let’s write openly what we know.” And we sent our article, as agreed, to Komsomolskaya Pravda. And that’s it, shut up! The editors respond to calls: “You know, we have Ukrainian events in the spotlight here now …”

I hope that this article will be published by the popular science magazine Wings of the Motherland. But he is short-lived. Here we are waiting, maybe something will come from Komsomolskaya Pravda. Probably won’t.

– If the cause of the accident is not known for certain, why can it be argued that Leonov’s version is untenable ?

– I received a flight sheet registration log in the LII archive. Every flight goes there. For each flight – a line: date, name of the pilot, if he flew more than one – the names of the crew members, task, take-off time, landing time. Well, and the quality of execution: done / not done. In this magazine, I opened a sheet on the day of Gagarin’s death – and found: “Su-15, pilot Bogorodsky Arkady Pavlovich, takeoff, landing, flight altitude – 18 thousand meters.” And after an hour and a half – pilot Shcherbakov, height – 14 thousand. That is, real supersonic high-altitude flights. Goals – engine testing. I built barograms (graphs of changes in altitude over time) of three aircraft: Bogorodsky, Gagarin-Seregin and Andreev – this is a pilot of the same regiment who flew the MiG-15 UTI at an altitude of 3 thousand, also to check the operation of the engines. He was supposed to take off from Chkalovsky half an hour after Gagarin and Seregin. And Shcherbakov took off already about an hour after the death of Gagarin.

Airfield Chkalovsky GK Research Institute of the Air Force in Shchelkovo. Gagarin should take off at nine, Andreev – at half past nine. Instructor Seryogin was late, so the takeoff was completed 27 minutes late. It’s not about indiscipline, he was detained by the head of the Cosmonaut Training Center. And he and Gagarin took off normally, but with an interval of only three minutes before Andreev. They have neighboring zones, the 20th and 21st. Both of them are from the same regiment – the 70th Special Fighter Aviation.

The weather was not suitable for such a flight. The purpose of the flight was to check Gagarin’s readiness to take off on a single-seat MiG-17. For such a flight, there must be either cloudless weather, or you need to fly behind the clouds. And according to the weather report and according to the information of the pilots of other aircraft, which the commission later received, the lower edge of the clouds was located at an altitude of about 600 meters, the upper one at 5000. Gagarin’s planned altitude was 4200. Andreev’s was 3000. The cloudiness was not continuous, but stratified, between layers – three hundred meters. The earth and the horizon were not visible. However, they took off.

According to calculations, it turns out that Gagarin made two turns and calmly said: “The 625th task in zone 20 has finished. I ask for permission to turn to heading 320. The flight director allowed him to return. To do this, according to the scheme of work at the airfield, Gagarin had to pass through the zone where Andreev was flying at an altitude of 3000 meters, then turn around and fly to the airfield. And these words of Gagarin were the last. As it was thought. Then it turned out that this was not so.

When the target disappeared from the radar screen, the flight director asked several times: “What is your altitude?” So, he realized that Gagarin and Seregin could get close to Andreev’s plane.

So, I built three barograms from the available data. According to the flight of Bogorodsky, only the time of takeoff and landing was known. According to Gagarin – takeoff, reaching a given altitude and the last message with a request to return. According to Andreev, there were also takeoff and climb times. What did the barograms show? When Gagarin spoke his last phrase, Bogorodsky’s plane had already landed. This is an irrefutable fact, documented. In my opinion, this is the most important proof that these planes could not get close.

Interestingly, when deciphering the radio exchange between Andreev and the earth, Gagarin and the earth, after that last phrase of Gagarin, a short phrase was recorded: “The height is two thousand.” It is not known whose, without a callsign. I superimposed its time on the barograms – and it fell right on Gagarin’s barogram. He said this at an altitude of 2000, apparently at the command of Seregin, when they were already randomly falling.

And the second interesting point. Two barograms intersect at an altitude of 3000 meters – Andreeva and Gagarin. Here they could get as close as they wanted. Whether they got close or not is unknown, but it is objectively clear that they could. It’s not like “Su-15, God knows why the pilot climbed into a foreign zone”, violating all the rules of flight work!

The next morning after the crash, I was at the crash site. It made such an impression on me that this is a common disaster of this kind. The scatter of details is small, the pit is quite deep, the cut of trees is about 50 degrees. Already there it was possible to understand what kind of regime was at the moment of impact. There was no data about when they had an accident, in what place in space and why. Black boxes were not installed then. And the technical staff did not even charge such a device as a barospeedograph. It is a drum with smoked paper tape, on which two arrows write, one for height, the other for speed. So even the remnants of paper were not there. The moment of impact on the ground was determined quite quickly and accurately by the pilots’ wristwatches and onboard watches: the clock broke, the hands stopped at about 10:30.

— Apart from the facts, what else did investigation rely on?

– In my group there was Dr. Byushgens from TsAGI, he suggested trying to simulate this flight on computer technology. In the mathematical model, the MiG-15 UTI equation was typed. And the task was set as follows: in what modes can an airplane descend from 4200 to the ground in a minute? (This is the time from Gagarin’s last transmission to the time the clock stopped). And the answer turned out to be quite clear: either a corkscrew or a deep spiral. It was more or less recognized by everyone. Subsequently, the group of the deputy head of the Air Force Academy, Sergei Belotserkovsky, also modeled this situation, varying different variables, and the same thing happened. With a different mode, it is impossible to lower the MiG-15 UTI aircraft from a height of 4200 meters in a minute.

I dug up a manual, a flight crew manual for a spin. It was written by a Tsag corkscrewer and published by the Military Publishing House. It says that the MiG-15 UTI two-seat aircraft has approximately the same characteristics as a single-seat one. This is important, because the MiG-15 UTI was not tested for a spin, the characteristics were simply transferred. It also follows from this manual that the aircraft is sensitive to errors when the controls are deflected. At speeds less than 400 km / h, even a slight deviation of the control stick in the wrong direction leads to a stall and a spin. When recovering from a spin, it is dangerous to confuse the direction of handle deflection. If the stick of an aircraft in a spin is deflected as needed to exit the spiral, the aircraft enters an even stronger spin – and practically does not come out of it. Here is such an instruction. The fact is that some pilots believe that this plane does not spin, that is, it is very difficult to drive it into a tailspin.

One can quite clearly imagine how Gagarin and Seregin pulled the plane out of a spin. In the clouds, instrument inference is nearly impossible. And only when they left the clouds at 600 meters did they begin to withdraw, as expected. These are the results of the simulation, and they are confirmed by the specialists of the Air Force Academy.

A small detail during the commission’s work. Somewhere at the fourth or fifth meeting, one of the generals of our subcommittee was instructed by the chairman to find out how the technical subcommittee assesses the state of materiel from the remnants. He reported: the technical subcommittee was ready to sign that the material part of the aircraft was in good order. No malfunctions were found on the remains, all systems and devices worked as they should, there was electricity. This is a very important statement. And at the next meeting, 3-4 days later, another general, also a member of the commission, said something like this: “Since the technical subcommittee said that the materiel is in good order, we need to look for an external cause. ”

At the same time, he kept silent about the “human factor”, due to which about 60% of air crashes occurred in those years.

One “external cause” was found by Leonov, and the second – by the Government Commission. In a very veiled form, her decision was written something like this: “The most likely cause of the incident was the appearance in the field of view of the pilots of a meteorological radiosonde, from which the pilots were forced to deviate energetically – and fell into a tailspin. It is also possible that they began to quickly deviate from entering the cloudiness. It was not supposed to talk about any errors in the organization of flight work, of which there were quite a lot (due to the “human factor”).

– Where did Leonov’s version come from?

– He gave out his version for a reason. Being in Kirzhach on jumps with his lunar group, he heard a double sonic boom. A supersonic aircraft drags a trail of sound waves behind it, which is heard on the ground in the form of a double hard pop. This is a physically obligatory phenomenon when decelerating from supersonic to subsonic speed: the plume continues to move for another tens of kilometers forward, while the pressure of the atmosphere rises abruptly, falls smoothly and is restored abruptly again. The first jump of the double impact corresponds approximately to the nose of the aircraft, the second approximately to the tail. And Leonov for some reason decided that the first bang was a sonic boom, and the second came to them, about 13 km away, at the moment the plane hit the ground.

The flights of Bogorodsky and Shcherbakov passed over the Chkalovsky airfield along the established route. Bogorodsky, flying up to Chkalovsky, was already slowing down after the task, so that later he would descend at subsonic, and released this shock wave forward, which reached Kirzhach. Leonov now says that Bogorodsky flew 25 meters from Gagarin! Where did 25 meters come from, who measured how? All these inventions are worthless and only show a lack of awareness.

— Is it necessary today to put the blame on fictitious reasons ?

– Then an unspoken command was given to the military: “Look for an external cause.” Because the real reason was internal, because of the “human factor”. And it concerns the organization of flight work.

* Late. So hurry.

* Departure in bad weather.

* Crash with barospeedograph missing.

* Seregin had a very long flight check.

According to a certain schedule, each pilot must fly regularly with an instructor and pass control modes. He had such a flight for a very long time. I personally did not find a single flight on the MiG-15 UTI at high angles and in a stall in Seregin’s flight book. And for this, both officers and generals could get burned.

* The radar altimeter at the Chkalovsky airfield did not work. The flight directors have two radars: one is a planned one, which shows where they were flying, and the second is an altimeter. Why didn’t he work? Did Seregin know that he was not working? Unknown.

* When they tried to restore the flight path using the planned locator, the military personnel who were engaged in observation presented us with such an improbable trajectory that we unanimously rejected it by the entire flight subcommittee, since it was an outright fantasy. So they weren’t watching the plane, even though they should be watching all the time. Therefore, they did not know when and where the plane went into emergency mode. They remembered when the target mark on the locator disappeared.

If all these claims were made by the military – in the 70th regiment, at the airfield and higher, right up to Kamanin (assistant air force commander for space) and Vershinin (air force commander – approx. IA REGNUM ), then all of them could lose their epaulettes, titles, and maybe go to jail. In aviation, security is always very strict. And no one looked after safety. A lot of shortcomings were immediately discovered. And their sum speaks of the ugly organization of flight work.

They often say, including even our pilots: “Well, Gagarin was poorly trained, he flew little, rarely, which means he seems to be to blame too.” I say: “Brothers, have you graduated from college for a long time? Do you remember the main thesis? The instructor is responsible for the safety of the flight of the pilot with the instructor. Even when learning to drive a car, if something happens, the instructor answers. On this, my colleagues gave up and agreed.

Interviewed by Olga Pushkareva

Arseniy Dmitrievich Mironov was born in 1917.

Since May 1941, after graduating from the Moscow Aviation Institute, he has been working at the LII. Chief Researcher, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor. He flew as an engineer, navigator and pilot. He served as the head of scientific departments, from 1969 to 1982 – deputy head of the LII, from 1982 to 1985 – head of the LII.

Repeatedly worked in commissions for the investigation of serious aviation accidents.

Chairman of the dissertation council of the LII, member of two dissertation councils of TsAGI, secret and unclassified. For a number of years he headed the department of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology; more than 10 specialists defended their dissertations under his supervision.

Winner of two State Prizes (1948 and 1976). He was awarded the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner of Labor and the Badge of Honor. Honorary aircraft builder. Medals: “For Valiant Labor. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of V.I. Lenin” – 1970, “30 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War” – 1975 Honorary veteran of labor since 1987

Anatoly Afanasyevich Polsky was born in 1921.