Chkalovsky Airport , is a military airport base near Shchyolkovo, Moscow Oblast, Russia. It is located 31 km northeast of Moscow. Chkalovsky provides air support for Star City, Russia, Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center, and other elements of the Soviet space program and Russian Federal Space Agency. It is also a major transport base, with the 8th Special Purpose Aviation Division (since 2009-10, the 6991st Air Base) operating the Antonov An-12, An-72, Tupolev Tu-154, Ilyushin Il-76, and Il-86VKP. Chkalovsky received USSR's first Il-76K for cosmonaut training on 23 July 1977. On the 27th of March 1968, Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Seryogin died in a MiG-15UTI that set off from this base, it crashed near the town of Kirzhach.