22 April] 1903 in Kamenka, Nikolayevsky Uezd, Samara Governorate (now Pugachyovsky District, Saratov Oblast) to a Russian peasant family.

He volunteered for the navy (Baltic Fleet) in 1920 and in 1924 he was assigned to Yegoryevsk Aviation Theorethical School.

[1] In 1930, Ivan Doronin joined the civil aviation in the Russian North.

Doronin was the first to fly over Verkhoyansk Range, he has mapped a line from Irkutsk to Ust-Srednekan.

In 1934, he took part in the rescue of the Chelyuskin steamship crew from an improvised airstrip on the frozen surface of the Chukchi Sea, for which he would be awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union.