KEY POINTS:
The Kremlin has vetoed a move to launch a fresh investigation into the mysterious death of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, angering aviation specialists who believe they have unravelled one of the twentieth century's greatest enigmas.
The rebuff came as Russians celebrated "Cosmonauts' Day" yesterday, the anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight around the Earth in 1961.
That foray into the Cosmos, that lasted a mere one hour and eight minutes, was a milestone in the then-fierce space race between the Soviet Union and Washington and turned Gagarin into a global icon.
But on March 27, 1968, Gagarin died in a mysterious plane crash while on a routine training mission in a MiG-15 with his flight instructor Vladimir Serugin just outside Moscow.
The results of the official investigation were vague and hypothetical and did not explain exactly what happened or why.
The vague nature of the commission's findings led some experts to question Gagarin's competence as a pilot and created an information vacuum that has since spawned endless conspiracy theories. The most insulting theory has the two men drunk on vodka and losing control of the plane under the influence.
There have also been serious suggestions that the "accident" was arranged by then-Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev who apparently felt threatened by Gagarin's towering fame and was embarrassed by his alcohol-fuelled philandering antics.
But Igor Kuznetsov, an aviation engineer involved in the original 1968 investigation, considers that he and his colleagues have solved the enigma using modern methodology.
He is convinced the cockpit was not hermetically sealed due to a partially open ventilation panel, a dangerous situation that forced the pilots to urgently reduce their altitude as an emergency measure.
The fact that the panel was open was not suspicious or the result of human error, he insists, but was nevertheless the reason why the two men died.
He says that in the process of reducing their altitude at a rate of 145 metres per second, a speed that was then considered acceptable but which has since been shown to be dangerous, the two men passed out altogether before the plane crashed into the ground.
With 30 other eminent experts, Kuznetsov has petitioned President Vladimir Putin to sanction a new investigation into the incident based on their findings. But the Kremlin says it sees no grounds to question the original findings.
"What original findings are they talking about? There were no original findings, just speculation," says Kuznetsov.
- INDEPENDENT
Star quality
* Yuri Gagarin was born in Klushino on 9 March, 1934.
* His parents were workers on a collective farm, but they were reportedly well educated.
* Gagarin began an apprenticeship as a foundry man in a metalworks. He took night classes at technical school, learnt to fly, entering a military pilot school in 1955.
* Gagarin was 1.57m tall, which gave him an advantage in the cramped cockpits of fighter jets.
* On April 12, 1961, Gagarin became a Soviet national hero and global icon after simultaneously becoming the first man in space and the first to orbit earth.
* On March 27, 1968, Gagarin died in a crash while on a routine training flight. Following his death, the town of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin.
