On December 15, 1938, Valery Pavlovich Chkalov conducted the first test flight of the new I-180 fighter. In all the documents of that time, it was recorded that the plane demonstrated many problems and was not quite ready to fly. There is also a version that Stalin personally forbade Chkalov to test-fly. But the wayward and risky pilot, who neglected the rules quite often, already made up his mind.

According to the plan, the pilot was supposed to make one low altitude circuit with the landing gear extended strictly around the airfield. Chkalov completed this task with ease and, unexpectedly for everyone, went for the second, much larger circuit. Due to harsh weather conditions — the temperature on the day of launch was below -25 degrees Celsius — the engine cut out, the propeller stopped, and the plane began descending.

Had the fighter been above the runway, Valery Chkalov, one of the most experienced and skilled pilots of his time, would have been able to land easily even with a stalled engine. But at the time of the engine failure, the plane was far away above the warehouse — an area that was not suitable for an emergency landing. Chkalov’s aircraft collapsed after striking the powerline. The pilot received severe head injuries and died that evening at the Botkin hospital.

From the memoirs of the pilot’s wife Olga Erazmovna Chkalova:

The funeral of the heroic pilot took place on December 18. Despite the frosty weather, tens of thousands of people gathered on Red Square in Moscow. The urn with Chkalov’s ashes was carried by Stalin and Molotov. It was interred in a niche in the Kremlin wall to a salvo of guns.