Kudos to whoever posted this TU-16/Essex crash.
I have the Russian translation as you requested and it goes as follows:
"On every flight there is a cameraman, and on that day they weren't stingy with the flim.
Afterwards, the Americans gave us a copy of the the film.
In the USSR it was put into a secret archive and has not been released to this day.
We found this unique material in the National Archive in Washington and you will have the opportunity to see it for the first time since 1968.
At this time we deliberately decided to stop the film (where) Pliyeev's plane is level with the flight deck.
A 35 meter long flying machine is flying at a speed of 500 kilometers per hour, 15 meters above the sea.
After flying over the ship again, Pliyeev's makes a turn. The cameraman turns off the camera and the accident happens quickly (and) judging from this film the camera man is in shock and forgets to point the lens correctly so in these frames we only see the sailors who are looking at something.
We remember the Essex located the place where the plane went down and sent helicopters there to help. On closer view they could see the smoke, but weren't able to locate anyone alive.
A second plane circles sadly. It had lost connection with Pliyeev's plane and wanted to understand what had happened to it." End of Translation.
Some personal notes about this incident:
I was aboard the Essex as a yeoman in the Captain's Office. On this day, a very nice day in the Norwegian Sea, a co-worker and I were sunning on the catwalk right outside the the Captain's Office located on the starboard side by the superstructure.
We witnessed Crazy Ivan Pliyeev's plane making this mock attack on the Essex.
These flight were nothing new but they increased in intensity and proximity the closer we got to Russia's equivalent to our Gulf of Mexico.
We watched in amazement as the plane flew level and along side the flight deck and then flew out about a mile off our port bow and when he went to turn to make another pass, his long left wing hit the water and the plane crashed into the sea.
The next day, pictures of the pilot's remains and film cannisters of the crash came thru the Captain's Office and we were able to view the photos but not the film of the actual crash.
I don't remember exactly, but I think we assembled and processed all of this documentation for delivery to a Soviet warship (a sleek cruiser as I recall) that or the next day along with the bodies we had recovered.
I can tell you flatly, a plane hitting the water at 300 mph/500 kph really does a number on an aircrew, as the picture of an airman's leg stump in his combat boot will attest to.
There was no joy in any of this and the transfer of the remains and documentation to the Soviet ship was a solemn affair on both sides.
Regarding the film the Russians discovered in Washington archives, I don't believe it was the version we sent to them on May 26/27, 1968.
We want to give them proof positve we had no hand in the crash and would not have sent them a video leaving out the most important part: the actual crash.
You'll notice in the YouTube video it was interrupted just before the crash.
I'm no video expert but it seems the crash was edited/spliced out (note those squiggly lines) for the censored version placed in the archives, but I'm reasonably certain the film the Soviets received at the time (1968) showed the crash in all it's gory.
I'll make another reply soon and give my take on this incident and why I believed it happened in the context of the Cold War and battles being fought below the waves in 1968. Four (yes 4) submarines were lost in the first 5 months of 1968, including the USS Scorpion which was lost/sunk just 2 days before the TU-16 crash off the Essex.
