In the middle of the Cold War, the field of aviation and the conquest of the sky and space was an important strategic issue from a military and civilian point of view for the former Soviet Union, and made this a priority priority in order to advance over the Western competitor, and adopted unconventional methods for this represented by the disturbing similarity between the Anglo Concorde French and the first Soviet supersonic aircraft "Tupolev Tu-144", nicknamed Concordski because of this similarity.

With this introduction, the French newspaper Le Parisien began its first report in a series of "major industrial espionage cases", reviewing what it called the "Kondorsky case", in reference to the espionage case in which the French External Security Department interrogated Sergey Pavlov, the representative of the Soviet Aeroflot company in France. In 1965, he was found in possession of detailed plans for the brakes, landing gear and fuselage of the Concorde, which had been designed in the strictest secrecy in France and England.

Concorde plane taking off from an airport (Getty Images)

great interest

The newspaper pointed out that Pavlov - who failed to dispose of his bag, and piles of documents were discovered in his Parisian apartment on all kinds of devices, including Concorde - left France in a hurry, and the French state sentenced him in absentia to 5 years in prison.

The Soviet interest in Concorde began early, as the French pilot André Turk - the first to fly in Concorde - says in his memoirs entitled "Concorde .. Trials and Battles", and Turk - who died in 2016 - indicated that this interest went beyond open searches in scientific journals and means The main media, translated into acts of espionage.

Turka recalls a visit by a Soviet delegation in 1967 to the workshops of the Sud Aviation company, the Concorde designer, and that "at that time he was forced to expel the members of the visiting team, including Andrei Tupolev's son, because they took very accurate pictures of our air outlets."

Turka adds that on another visit by a Soviet delegation in 1973 to the "Snekma" factory that designed Concorde jet engines, the driver of one of the delegation's cars was found wandering alone inside the building, and discovered that he was a colonel in the Soviet army who had changed his uniform with a simple jacket, so that he could pass without Unobtrusive to gather as much information as possible.

Soviet Tu-144, nicknamed "Konkordsky" (Reuters)

Many similarities

Concorde (Soviet) first flew on December 31, 1968, two months before Concorde;

The French engineers were amazed because the resemblance was so great that they asked, "Is it a replica?"

As Xavier Dregel, co-author of The Love of Concord says.

Konkordsky was an economic disaster as much as a technological disaster - according to Dregel - due to its need for a lot of fuel, and it was also subjected to several accidents;

The most symbolic of them is what happened at the 1973 Paris Air Show.

In fact, Concorde had been carrying passengers for only a few months, while Concorde crossed the Atlantic twice a day for 27 years without incident, until that sad day in July 2000 when Air France Flight 4590 crashed on take-off from Paris. On a trip to New York, Concorde retires permanently.