Blagin, Nikolai Pavlovich

Born in Vitebsk in the family of a military topographer, later lieutenant colonel , Peter Anisimovich Blagin.

He received a good education - a real school , then a cadet corps . Since 1918 in the Red Army . Since 1920 - in flight schools and units.

In 1918 he joined the RCP (B.) , But in 1922, due to the noble origin, he did not pass the party purge.

Since 1932, Blagin - TsAGI test pilot. He tested ANT-29 , BICH-7A , I-5 , ANT-40 , other aircraft, as well as systems of jet boosters for TB-1 and I-4 .

May 18, 1935 Blagin on the I-5 fighter accompanied the demonstration and at the same time acceptance and test flight ANT-20. "Maxim Gorky" was piloted by N. S. Zhurov (ship commander, pilot of the Tupolev Design Bureau) ^[2] and I. V. Mikheev (pilot of the campaign squadron). ^{[3] [4]} All previous flights were performed by M. M. Gromov , who had been in hospital since April 30 . On board, in addition to a crew of 11 people, there were 38 ^[5] passengers, most of them TsAGI employees and their children. The second escort aircraft, R-5, piloted by V.V. Rybushkin, carried a cameraman who captured the flight and the crash). According to the official version (TASS report):

Despite the categorical prohibition to do any kind of aerobatics during escort, the pilot Blagin violated this order and began to do aerobatics in the immediate vicinity of the Maxim Gorky plane at an altitude of 700 m. When leaving the loop, the pilot Blagin his plane hit the wing of the aircraft "Maxim Gorky." The Maxim Gorky plane, due to the injuries caused by the impact of a training aircraft, began to collapse in the air, went over in spades and fell to the ground in separate parts in the Sokol village, near the airport ... In a mid-air collision, the pilot Blagin, piloting a training aircraft, also died. ^[6]

Pravda of May 21, 1935 conveyed Gromov’s opinion of Blagin: “My student Blagin represented a type of unorganized person. True, he recently seemed to have pulled himself up, but his bad habits still burst. I speak of his subtlety, outrageousness in the air. " In his post-war memoirs, Gromov argued that Blagin was the sole culprit of the disaster.

Despite all the accusations, Blagin was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery along with those killed at ANT-20. ^[7] Shortly after the disaster, Blagin's anti-Soviet “death letter” was published in European newspapers: “Brothers and sisters! Tomorrow I will drive my winged car and ram the plane, which bears the name of the villain Maxim Gorky ”; ^[8] According to current estimates, this publication is fake.

Investigation

The NKVD officers carried out an investigation into the accident of "Maxim Gorky". It turned out that 1–1.5 hours before the flight, with the approval of the senior leadership of the Air Force, pilots met the film factory of military training films V. G. Ryazhsky and A. A. Pullin, who insisted on performing aerobatics on a fighter next to the passenger "Maxim Gorky." Blagin was forced to agree, carrying out, in fact, the installation of senior management. Filming planned to conduct from another plane. Cinema materials should have been used for campaigning purposes. The flight director and the direct pilots did not know about the change in the flight scenario. After the disaster, the investigation materials were classified in order not to compromise the top leadership of the Air Force and the country.

Unaware of the truth, members of the public put forward a variety of versions of what happened, condemning Blagin as the culprit of the disaster. Only in 2010, a memorandum from People's Commissar Yagoda Stalin on the results of the investigation in this case became public, rehabilitating Blagin.

Answers to questions that have arisen over the years have removed all doubts. It is known that the urn with the ashes of Blagin was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery along with other victims of this disaster, which is more than strange if Blagin is considered to be the deliberate culprit of the disaster. After the death of Blagin, the family was not subjected to repression or persecution. On the contrary, the widow, daughter, one of Blagin's parents were immediately granted pensions for the loss of the breadwinner. Blagin's daughter was transferred to a new school. The local party leadership surrounded the Blagin family with care and attention, fully supporting morally and financially the family of the deceased pilot.

At the same time, the employees of the film factory of military educational films Ryazhsky and Pullin were neither arrested nor convicted, but continued their career. After 2 years, Pullin became the main operator of the propaganda military science fiction film Deep Raid , Ryazhsky worked at Mosfilm and at the Yalta film studio.

• A special consolidated agitation squadron them. Maxim Gorky

• Blagin Nikolay Pavlovich (inaccessible link)
• The tragedy of "Maxim Gorky"