Tupolev Tu-104 - Operational History

Operational History

On September 15, 1956, the Tu-104 began revenue service on Aeroflot's Moscow-Omsk-Irkutsk route, replacing the piston-engined Ilyushin Il-14. The flight time was reduced from 13 hours and 50 minutes to 7 hours and 40 minutes, and the new jet dramatically increased the level of passenger comfort. By 1957, Aeroflot had placed the Tu-104 in service on routes from Vnukovo Airport in Moscow to London, Budapest, Copenhagen, Beijing, Brussels, Ottawa, Delhi, and Prague.

In 1957, ČSA Czechoslovak Airlines became the only export customer for the Tu-104, placing the aircraft on routes to Moscow, Paris and Brussels. ČSA bought six Tu-104As (four new and two used examples) configured for 81 passengers. Three of these aircraft were subsequently written off (one due to a refuelling incident in India and another to a pilot error without fatalities).

In 1959, the plane was leased to Sir Henry Lunn Ltd. (Lunn Poly) of London who used the plane for 12 holidays to Russia and boasted of a 4.5 hours flight.

The Tu-104 continued to be used by Aeroflot throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Some 16 aircraft were lost in crashes (some due to hijackings/bombings). The safety record is comparable to other early jet airliners of its day, but was poor compared to more modern airliners. Aeroflot retired the Tu-104 from civil service in March 1979 following a fatal accident at Moscow. Following this, several aircraft were transferred to the Soviet military, which used them as staff transports and to train cosmonauts in zero gravity. However, after a Tu-104 crash in February 1981 killed 52 people (17 of whom were senior army and naval staff), the type was permanently removed from service. The last flight of the Tu-104 was a ferry flight to a museum in Ulyanovsk in 1986.