{"id":31508388,"date":"2026-11-06T17:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T16:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/?p=31508388"},"modified":"2026-11-06T17:26:21","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T16:26:21","slug":"tsar-bomba-tu-95v-durnovtsev-50-megatons-1961","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/tsar-bomba-tu-95v-durnovtsev-50-megatons-1961\/","title":{"rendered":"Tsar Bomba: The Bomber Crew Who Dropped 50 Megatons"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid #0F1720;background:#fff;color:#0F1720;font-family:inherit;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;line-height:1;letter-spacing:0;text-transform:none;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:none;transition:background .15s,color 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It fell under a parachute for just over three minutes. When it went off, about 4,000 metres above the Mityushikha Bay test range, it released the energy of roughly 50 million tonnes of TNT. It remains the most powerful explosion humans have ever caused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;border-left:4px solid #1a1a1a;padding:18px 22px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px\"><li><strong>Date:<\/strong> 30 October 1961, 11:32 Moscow time<\/li><li><strong>Site:<\/strong> Mityushikha Bay test range, Novaya Zemlya<\/li><li><strong>Official name:<\/strong> RDS-220, &ldquo;izdeliye 202&rdquo;; called Tsar Bomba in the West<\/li><li><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Tu-95V, a modified Tu-95 bomber, with a Tu-16 flying laboratory<\/li><li><strong>Pilot:<\/strong> Major Andrei Durnovtsev<\/li><li><strong>Bomb:<\/strong> About 27 tonnes, 8 m long, 2.1 m in diameter<\/li><li><strong>Release \/ burst height:<\/strong> About 10,500 m \/ about 4,000 m<\/li><li><strong>Yield:<\/strong> About 50 megatons (Soviet figure); early US estimates 55&ndash;60<\/li><li><strong>Design capacity:<\/strong> About 100 megatons<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Bomber Built Around One Bomb<\/h2>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The weapon was too big for any normal bomb bay. The Tu-95V was a Bear modified with an enlarged, strengthened bomb bay. The aircraft was painted in white anti-flash paint, down to the propeller blades. Alongside flew a twin-jet Tu-16, fitted as a flying laboratory with cameras, telemetry and pressure recorders to film and measure the blast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The pilot was Major Andrei Durnovtsev, 38. The problem facing his crew was simple: a 50-megaton burst would destroy any aircraft nearby. The answer was a parachute system with a main canopy of about 1,600 square metres, which weighed on the order of 800 kilograms on its own. It slowed the bomb so much that it took about 188 seconds to fall from 10,500 to 4,000 metres.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">45 Kilometres Away<\/h2>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That time let the Tu-95V get roughly 45 kilometres away before the burst. It was not enough to make the flight comfortable. The shock wave caught the bomber and threw it down by somewhere between 800 and 1,000 metres, depending on the account, before the crew regained control and flew home. Durnovtsev was promoted to lieutenant colonel and made a Hero of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the ground, the fireball swelled almost to the height of the release aircraft. The mushroom cloud rose to about 64 kilometres, seven times the height of Everest, and spread to roughly 90 kilometres across. The flash was seen about 1,000 kilometres away despite cloud. Buildings in the settlement of Severny, 55 kilometres from ground zero, were destroyed. Windows were broken hundreds of kilometres away, and the Atomic Heritage Foundation reports panes broken as far as Norway and Finland, where the shock wave was focused by the atmosphere. Instruments recorded the pressure wave travelling around the Earth three times.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why Only Half of It Went Off<\/h2>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Khrushchev had asked for a 100-megaton weapon. The three-stage design could have delivered it, but the designers replaced the uranium tamper of the final stage (and possibly the second) with lead. That roughly halved the yield and cut the fallout dramatically: about 97 percent of the energy came from fusion, making it, for its size, an unusually clean bomb. A full-yield test would also have left the bomber no realistic chance of escaping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bomb was designed in about sixteen weeks at Arzamas-16 by a team that included Andrei Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babayev, Yuri Smirnov and Yuri Trutnev, under the institute&rsquo;s scientific director Yuli Khariton. Sakharov later turned against nuclear testing and became a leading Soviet dissident; he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, though Moscow would not let him travel to Oslo to receive it.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Film<\/h2>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Soviet cameras filmed the whole operation, from loading the bomb to the cloud. The footage stayed secret until 20 August 2020, when Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear corporation, released a 30-minute documentary to mark 75 years of the Russian nuclear industry.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What the Popular Version Gets Right<\/h2>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The widely shared account is mostly right: 30 October 1961, a bomb of about 27 tonnes and 8 metres, a parachute of around 800 kilograms, a bomber roughly 45 kilometres away at detonation, a flash seen about 1,000 kilometres off, a yield of 50 megatons from a 100-megaton design reduced by swapping uranium for lead, and a film kept secret until August 2020. Three details need correcting. The cloud reached about 64 kilometres, not 67; no reliable source gives the often-quoted 8-kilometre fireball width, only that it rose almost to the bomber&rsquo;s height. And Sakharov did not oversee the project alone: he was one of its leading designers in a team at Arzamas-16 headed by Yuli Khariton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Sources: Carey Sublette, Nuclear Weapon Archive, &ldquo;Big Ivan, The Tsar Bomba&rdquo;; Atomic Heritage Foundation, &ldquo;Tsar Bomba&rdquo; (2014); Air &amp; Space Magazine, &ldquo;King of the Bombs&rdquo;; The War Zone, Thomas Newdick (24 August 2020); The Barents Observer (August 2020); Rosatom documentary film (20 August 2020); Andrei Sakharov, <em>Memoirs<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\n\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\n\n\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>What was the Tsar Bomba?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Tsar Bomba, officially RDS-220, was a Soviet hydrogen bomb tested on 30 October 1961 over Novaya Zemlya. With a yield of about 50 megatons it is the most powerful explosion ever caused by humans.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Which aircraft dropped the Tsar Bomba?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Tsar Bomba was dropped by a specially modified Tu-95V bomber flown by Major Andrei Durnovtsev, with a Tu-16 flying laboratory alongside to film and measure the blast.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How did the bomber survive the Tsar Bomba?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">A parachute with a main canopy of about 1,600 square metres slowed the bomb so it took about 188 seconds to fall from 10,500 to 4,000 metres. That let the Tu-95V reach roughly 45 kilometres away. The shock wave still pushed the aircraft down by 800 to 1,000 metres before the crew recovered.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How powerful was the Tsar Bomba?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Soviet figure is about 50 megatons, roughly 3,800 times the Hiroshima bomb; early US estimates ranged from 55 to 60 megatons. The design could have produced about 100 megatons, but the designers replaced uranium in the bomb with lead to halve the yield and cut fallout.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How high did the Tsar Bomba mushroom cloud rise?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Tsar Bomba mushroom cloud rose to about 64 kilometres and spread to roughly 90 kilometres across. The flash was seen about 1,000 kilometres away.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Did the Tsar Bomba break windows in Norway and Finland?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Atomic Heritage Foundation reports that the Tsar Bomba shock wave, focused by the atmosphere, broke windows as far away as Norway and Finland. Soviet data cited by the Nuclear Weapon Archive say windows were partially broken up to 900 kilometres from the test site.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Did Andrei Sakharov build the Tsar Bomba?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Andrei Sakharov was one of the leading designers of the Tsar Bomba, working at Arzamas-16 with Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babayev, Yuri Smirnov and Yuri Trutnev under scientific director Yuli Khariton. He later opposed nuclear testing and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>When was the Tsar Bomba film released?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Rosatom released the previously secret film of the Tsar Bomba test on 20 August 2020, as a 30-minute documentary marking 75 years of the Russian nuclear industry.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the Tsar Bomba?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Tsar Bomba, officially RDS-220, was a Soviet hydrogen bomb tested on 30 October 1961 over Novaya Zemlya. 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Here is what happened, and which of the famous numbers hold up.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31507914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31508388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Tsar Bomba: The Tu-95 Crew Who Dropped 50 Megatons | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On 30 October 1961 a Tu-95V dropped the Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya: 27 tonnes, a giant parachute and a 50-megaton blast. 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