The mystery surrounding Yuri Gagarin’s death in an aircraft crash more than forty years ago may finally have been solved by a report which quashes decades of conspiracy theories.

Independent Russian investigators say they have uncovered crucial new evidence which finally reveals how the world’s first man in space died aged just 34. The study claims Gagarin’s death during a routine training flight in 1968 was caused by his panicked reaction after realising an air vent in his cockpit was open. He threw his MiG-15 fighter jet into such a steep dive that he blacked out and crashed into a forest below killing himself and his co-pilot.

Igor Kuznetsov, a retired Soviet air force colonel, believes his findings will end years of conspiracy theories ranging from claims Gagarin was drunk to allegations the accident was staged by jealous Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. He has spent the past nine years with a group of aviation specialists, piecing together the circumstances using modern accident investigation techniques.

Gagarin died on a routine flight seven years after he shot to global fame by orbiting the Earth for 68 minutes. His mission handed the Soviet Union a spectacular propaganda coup and Gagarin quickly became the USSR’s biggest star. But the findings of the original investigation into his death have never been published and are known to have been vague. Investigators were only able to conclude that “the most probable cause” was a sudden in-flight manoeuvre made to avoid a weather balloon or cloud cover. But after studying hundreds of documents relating to the incident, Col Kuznetsov has concluded that an air vent in the cockpit was left partially open.

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