The first Tu-114, registration CCCP-Л5611, was first shown to the West in 1958 at the Brussels World Exhibition. It later carried Nikita Khrushchev on his first trip to the United States in September 1959, the first such visit by any Soviet leader. The Tu-114 was still in the testing phase and had completed its first long range flight only four months earlier, after which postflight analysis found that hairline cracks had formed in the engines. Trusting the Soviet leadership to a still experimental aircraft was risky, but the only other option for a flight to the United States would be the short range Il-18 which would require multiple fueling stops. Although the Central Committee, Minister of Defense Malinovsky, and Khrushchev's personal pilot all considered it too risky to use the new aircraft, the Soviet premier insisted and aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev felt confident enough to put his son Alexei on the same flight. During Khrushchev's flight, a group of engineers were aboard the plane, operating diagnostic equipment to monitor the engines and verify that they were functioning correctly. Khrushchev later said, "We didn't publicize the fact that Tupolev's son was with us" for "to do so, would have meant giving explanations, and these might have been damaging to our image". When it arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, the ground crew found that the aircraft was so large and its landing gear so tall that they had no passenger steps high enough to reach the forward hatch. Khrushchev and his party were obliged to use the aircraft's own emergency escape ladder. The last flight of this particular plane was in 1968, and it is now on display at the Central Air Force Museum at Monino, outside of Moscow. Similar issues were experienced when the plane first landed at London and Paris airports, neither of which had hosted a plane of this size.