Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Flogger-B.

This is coolbert:

Think not that a wandering pilotless warplane on auto-pilot so totally unusual.

Here with an instance from the era of the Cold War.

'Soesterberg we have a problem': the story of a pilotless Soviet MiG-23 over Belgium"

From https://theaviationist.com October 3, 2012 DARIO LEONE.

"That time a Soviet MiG-23 crossed Europe before crashing in Belgium."

BANDIT INTRUDER PILOTLESS SOVIET BLOC WARPLANE PIRATE OF THE SKY!

"Jul. 4 1989 was a hell of an Independence Day for the American 32nd TFS (Tactical Fighter Squadron) . . . based at Soesterberg Air Base, in the Netherlands."

"In fact when Captains J.D. 'JD' Martin and Bill 'Turf' Murphy were scrambled with their F-15C Eagle fighter jets, they could not imagine that their mission was to intercept a very strange MiG."

"On the very same day a Soviet MiG-23M 'Flogger B' and its pilot, Colonel Nikolai Skurigin, had taken off for a routine training mission from Kolobzreg, in Poland. During the mission, the MiG suffered what seemed to be an engine failure that forced Skurigin to eject from his jet."

PLANE HAD ENGINE FAILURE, PILOT EJECTED, PLANE CONTINUED TO FLY ON AUTO-PILOT INTO NATO AIRSPACE A CONSIDERABLE DISTANCE.

The story as also reported by the wiki:

"On 4 July 1989, a pair of 32nd TFS F-15Cs scrambled to intercept what turned out to be an unoccupied Soviet Air Forces MiG-23M 'Flogger' which had flown on autopilot from its base in Bagicz, Poland, to West Germany after the pilot had ejected. The pilots were instructed to shoot it down over the North Sea however the MiG-23 ran out of fuel and crashed into a house in Kortrijk, Belgium, killing an occupant."

Read here also and as is germane the saga of the Libyan MiG-23 found crashed on an Italian mountainside, dead pilot inside. Having flown on auto-pilot a consider distance prior to coming-to-earth.

coolbert.




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