A Race Into the Jet Age In the 1950s, the Soviet Union watched in shock as Britain unveiled the de Havilland Comet, the ...

So, too, does the frightening story of the Soviet Union's Tupolev TU-104, the jet airliner that could be truly terrifying to ride. Here's the frightening lowdown on this unique yet dangerous aircraft.

So, in 1953, Andrey Tupolev, the legendary aircraft designer and builder, presented his proposal for the jet airliner. Two years flew by (pun intended), and the Tu-104 prototype took off in June 1955.

Last week a TU-104 jet passenger airliner had aboard four West Germans and a Briton (as well as 16 Chinese Communist officials) when it crashed 380 miles east of Moscow on a flight from Peking to ...

Vnukovo will instead receive the name of Tupolev, whose design bureau created aircraft including the pioneering Tu-104, the workhorse Tu-134 and Tu-154, and the supersonic Tu-144.

Tupolev's engines power two sets of 18-foot-long blades that spin in opposite directions; this makes them more efficient but also creates enormous noise. The Tu-95 is considered to be the noisiest ...