The Tupolev Tu-134 (NATO reporting name: Crusty) is a twin-engined, narrow-body jet airliner built in the Soviet Union for short and medium-haul routes from 1966 to 1989.

In addition to regular passenger service, it has also been used in various air force, army and navy support roles; for pilot and navigator training; and for aviation research and test projects.

A total of 854 Tu-134s were built of all versions (including test bed examples) with Aeroflot as the largest user by 1995, the Tu-134 had carried 360 million passengers for that airline.

Following the introduction of engines mounted on pylons on the rear fuselage by the French Sud Aviation Caravelle, airliner manufacturers around the world rushed to adopt the new layout.

[3] During a 1960 visit to France, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was so impressed by the quiet cabin of the Caravelle, that on 1 August 1960 the Tupolev OKB received an official directive to design a new aircraft with a similar engine arrangement.

Meanwhile in October 1963, the prototype British BAC One-Eleven, which had a similar T-tail layout, crashed with the loss of all crew while testing its stalling properties.

The engines on early production Tu-134s lacked thrust reversers, which made the aircraft one of a handful of types from that era that used a brake parachute for landing in adverse conditions.

The lineage of early Soviet airliners could be traced directly to the Tupolev Tu-16 strategic bomber, and the Tu-134 carried over the glass nose for the navigator and the landing gear fitted with low-pressure tires to permit operation from unpaved airfields.

From 1972, Aeroflot began placing the Tu-134 in domestic service to Baku, Yerevan, Kyiv, Kishinev, Krasnodar, Leningrad, Omsk, Riga, and Sochi from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow.

After a fatal accident in March 2007, and at the instigation of Russian Minister of Transportation Igor Levitin, Aeroflot announced that it would be retiring its fleet, and the last Tu-134 was removed from service on 1 January 2008.