Several US pilots stationed at the border with the Soviet Union were enjoying the 4th of July holiday
with their comrades when a Soviet pilot hopped into his MiG-23 for a routine flight to Poland.
Minutes later, two Air Force pilots were abruptly ordered to take off and intercept a
Soviet aircraft that had breached NATO airspace. When their F15s finally approached the Soviet
aircraft near Belgium, the pilots attempted to make radio contact before shooting it down.
But no response came back, and the two men then approached the MiG from its sides,
only to be shocked by what they saw: there was no one flying the aircraft!
An audio recording from the communication between the two pilots
shows their quick thinking, as they knew they would probably get answers later,
but right then they had to find a way to stop it with as little damage as possible...
MiG-23
Aviation history has been filled with the strangest of mishaps, including certain
occurrences in which aircraft keep flying even as their pilots have already ejected them.
These are known as ghost aircraft, and they were quite common during the Cold War.
Although the tensions between the so-called Free World and the Iron Curtain
were still high by mid-1989, the threat of global war was no longer an issue.
The Soviet Union was about to crumble, and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev
was attempting to reconcile with the West. Still, his attempts to remain on good terms
with the United States and its NATO allies would be significantly threatened by an
aircraft malfunction from one of the Soviet’s Air Force finest fighters: the MiG-23.
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23, codenamed Flogger by NATO forces,
is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft introduced in the late 1960s.
The Soviet third-generation fighter operated similarly to the SU 17 Fitter,
and it was also the first Russian fighter to include an RP23 Sapfir look-down radar
and Beyond Visual Range missiles, or BRV. Production quickly ramped up after 1969,
and by the time it was halted almost two decades later, over 5,000 had been built,
making it one of the top 5 most-produced sweep wing aircraft in history.
Still, the MiG-23 was not without cons, and one of the most noticeable was its lack of
maneuverability compared to more modern aircraft such as the American F15 Eagle or F4 Phantoms.
A Ghost Aircraft
July 4th of 1989 looked like any other day for Soviet Colonel Nikolai Skuridin.
The Colonel was stationed at Bagicz Airbase near Kołobrzeg, Poland,
and woke up early to conduct a standard routine flight.
Skuridin made sure that his MiG-23M Flogger B was in pristine condition for the flight;
maintenance was in order, and the systems’ check went smoothly.
The Colonel dressed up, hopped into his aircraft and started the engines.
Moments later, the MiG-23 began to lift off from Runway 23 of Bagicz Airbase.
With its wings out at 18.5 degrees for takeoff and its Tumansky R-29-300
turbojet roaring in full afterburner, Skuridin took to the skies as usual.
His MIG was only armed with 200 rounds of 23-millimeter ammunition as there was no
need for additional ordnance for his training mission. However, the fuel tanks were full to
assure there were no inconveniences for the operation at the Baltic Sea.
As the aircraft began to steadily climb and Skuridin raised the landing gear,
he felt something strange. At about 150 meters above ground level,
the afterburner abruptly quit, and smoke began to obstruct Skuridin’s field of view.
The cockpit quickly filled with smoke, and the MiG began to abruptly descend.
The veteran aviator knew that these failures were beyond his hands
and ejected before it was too late. Then, as he parachuted towards the runway,
he turned to look at the aircraft and was bewildered by what he saw.
As the MiG was now lighter without the pilot and the cockpit,
it slightly pitched up and began to climb up. To Skuridin’s amazement, the MiG had regained
its takeoff speed and vanished on the horizon. As the aircraft headed straight into NATO’s
airspace, Colonel Skuridin knew that the problem would quickly escalate into a continental crisis.
Something Is Wrong
The members of the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron stationed at Soesterberg Air Base
in the Netherlands were partying in celebration of Independence Day before returning to their duties.
Captains J.D. “JD” Martin and Bill “Turf” Murphy had gathered at the
infield between the base and the Wolfhounds squadron area
to eat hot dogs, drink beer and watch a baseball game between their mates.
However, Martin and Murphy were immediately summoned after the Dutch Wing Operations
Center notified them about an Alpha Scramble: an enemy aircraft had just breached NATO airspace!
The two pilots thought it was a joke, but things got real pretty fast
after they were given an initial vector from the scramble order.
The two airmen then took to the skies aboard their F15 Eagles and raced to the
border of East and West Germany at supersonic speeds and a height of about 10,000 meters.
When they approached the border, the pilots grabbed radar locks at about 30 kilometers.
Instants later, the men sighted their target. It was a Soviet MiG-23 Flogger breaching NATO
airspace, but something was wrong. Audio recordings show that Murphy and
Martin reported having just intercepted a Flogger immediately. They estimated that the aircraft
was traveling at about 170 knots but didn’t understand why it was flying there and on its own.
The pilots were told to intervene the aircraft into Laarbruch, a Royal Air Force base in Germany.
Martin then approached the MiG-23 only to discover that it didn’t have a cockpit or a pilot.
He would later describe the scene as a: (QUOTE) “Houston, we have a problem! situation.”
When Martin told the headquarters that there was no pilot,
they replied with a: (QUOTE) “Say again!” Martin insisted on what he had just seen,
and the two pilots were then ordered to continue following the fighter.
To make matters worse, the Soviet aircraft had just initiated a shallow descent.
An Unfortunate Casualty
As the MiG began to run out of fuel, it was going to crash at any moment.
Martin and Murphy then received orders to destroy it in the air.
When interviewed by writer Dario Leone, Murphy recalled: (QUOTE)
“The engage clearance was qualified with something to the effect of “only engage if you believe doing
so will result in less damage on the ground than simply letting the aircraft crash on its own.
JD and I had plenty of time to inter-flight chat on the Aux UHF. We went through several
iterations of “should we or shouldn’t we?” Their main concern was to find a way to
minimize the damage below. They pondered if it was better to let the jet fall down in
one piece or destroy it in a hundred pieces that could scatter around like a grenade.
Martin and Murphy assessed that the MiG was heading towards the city of Lille, located on
the border between France and Belgium, and they could shoot it down prior to the city limits.
However, their velocity indicators indicated that the aircraft would not reach the city
and would instead crash into an unpopulated area close to the city. The pilots then saw
that the MiG was about to crash into what looked like an empty field and headed back to base.
Although their assessment was partially correct, the MiG hit a farm before eventually
crashing on the ground. Unfortunately, an 18-year-old boy lost his life upon impact.
Photos of the crash show the extent of the damage to the farm. And when Colonel
Skuridin was briefed hours later, he said to the media: (QUOTE) “If I could have foreseen such
tragic consequences to this pilotless flight, I would have stayed in the plane to the end.”
Meanwhile, President Gorbachev agreed to pay Belgium a compensation of 685,000 dollars
and claimed: (QUOTE) “I am sorry about what happened.
The Belgians have been made aware of the reasons, and we expressed our regret.”
After that, the incident was quickly forgotten, and a global crisis was averted.
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