Eyewitness pilot doubts the official version of the Tu-144 disaster in June 1973

All six people on board were killed, as well as eight local residents. Test pilot John Farley, a witness of that tragedy, spoke about those events in an interview with the BBC Russian Service.

“When the Tu-144 was sailing at low altitude, nothing foreshadowed trouble.

But a few seconds later the car was at its peak and things were going to crash. It collapsed, exploded, only debris flew to the ground.

I am sure that most people in the modern world do not even suspect that the Russians tried to build a supersonic passenger liner, it got the nickname "Concorde" because the press was trying to find similarities.

It is interesting, of course, to speculate that they probably copied it, stole our drawings, that they must have spies in our company - such stories make newspapers circulate.

But I think that in reality this was hardly the case.

“It is remarkably similar to the Concorde, with the same deltoid wing.

The drooping nose is not visible on this model. But a Soviet female engineer assured me that the plane would have a lowered nose, just like the Concorde, ”said a French TV correspondent.

At the 1973 Le Bourget air show, we saw two supersonic airliners. And, of course, there was a competition on which of them will show the best aerobatics.

On the last day of the salon, we watched the Concorde maneuver, making turns and flights.

And then it was the turn of the Tu-144. He began to climb sharply, and suddenly his nose jerked down, it happened very abruptly, the plane approached the ground, it came out of its dive, and collapsed.

In the evening we heard on the radio that quite a few people had died on the ground. The plane crashed right into the center of a small village.

There were more than enough rumors about what had happened.

The official version, which none of those involved in aviation believed, was that supposedly the photographer who was in the cockpit fell on the control when the plane went into level flight after climbing.

A French reconnaissance aircraft circled over the airfield, filming flights of competing aircraft, and especially, of course, this concerned the Tu-144.

I think his pilots unexpectedly saw this reconnaissance aircraft, immediately stopped climbing and tried to go under it.

Perhaps this led to the accident.

After the disaster, it seems to me, the world did not hear much more about the Tu-144.

He did not make flights outside the USSR, there was little information about his future fate.

I think many will say that the cause was an accident, but in fact, their engines simply did not reach the level of Western ones.

Remembering the events of 1973 now, one can simply summarize: "Concorde" won, but Tu-144 lost".

The video source is here.