are hard to substantiate due to lack of reliable data or witnesses. The only Soviet people alive to see Gastello's final plunge, the crew of Lt. Vorobiev, were killed in action just a few days after Gastello. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, several reporters began disputing the official accounts. Some of the claims made were: Gastello did not perform the attack deliberately. The target of the fire taran was not a column of tanks, but a stationary flak gun, apparently the one that dealt the burning aircraft the fatal blow. The suicide attack was performed by another pilot from the same squadron, Captain Maslov. Gastello's flight included not two, but three aircraft, with Maslov flying the third bomber. Gastello's plane was hit, but it flew away from the battle, with one crew member being seen to bail out. A man who was 15 years old in 1941 claimed he saw someone jump off the left wing of the aircraft, which would only be possible for the pilot to do. The bailed out airman, who he believed to be Gastello, was captured by the Germans. A burned out body was discovered in the woods in July 1941 by a group of peasants, far away from the location of the fire taran, with an undelivered letter and a cigarette case identifying it as a member of Gastello's crew. A 1951 Soviet reburial effort exhumed the graves of Gastello's crew, who were wrapped in parachutes and hastily buried by peasants the night after their death. A map case and a medallion belonged to Captain Maslov and his gunner were found on the bodies. The entire affair was subsequently swept under the rug. Neither Gastello nor Maslov managed to hit anything of value, and the actual fire taran was performed a day later, by Isaac Zilovich Presaizen, reported by Squadron Commander Captain Beletsky and verified from the air the next day by 128 Air Regiment Second in Command V. Sandalov. Isaac Presaizen was recommended for Hero of the Soviet Union award; the recommendation still stands in the archives, having never been answered. The actual air photos taken by V. Sandalov were used to award Gastello his fame for non-existent attack. These claims, made in 1994 and then in 2001 in Russia's leading newspapers, Izvestia and then Moskovskiy Komsomoletz, caused a firestorm in the former Soviet Union. They have been debunked