Story of Defected Soviet MiG-25 Pilot - Who Landed in Japan

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 Foxbat High Altitude Recce Aircraft. Photo Credits: Wikimedia Commons

One of the most fascinating story occurred during the cold war was the defection of Soviet pilot named Viktor Belenko, who decided to defect and landed in Japan, flying the most powerful and secret jet of Soviets Air Force.
In the mid of 1970s, west has no idea about the introduction of Foxbat in the Soviet services given the fact, MiG-25 was produced in a very high secrecy, but it starts with spy satellite imagery that shows a new mysterious soviet jet operating in soviet air bases, which had huge wings, big fuselage and is very fast as seen from the blurry images. Nobody knew nothing about this secret jet that was being flown by Soviets secretly.

Lieutenant Viktor I.Belenko in Soviet Air Force, depressed by his marriage life, his life was falling apart, a divorce looming. He also began to question the entirety of the Soviet system, and if the West was really as bad as he'd been told. As what said by Foxtrot Alpha, after realizing that the massive aircraft, new MiG-25 that he was being trained to fly was his ticket out, Belenko started plotting. The day he flew out of training - September 6, 1976, He also had a full tank of fuel and a route.

As Recounted by The BBC.

On 6 September 1976, an aircraft appears out of the clouds near the Japanese city of Hakodate, on the northern island of Hokkaido. It’s a twin-engined jet, but not the kind of short-haul airliner Hakodate is used to seeing. This huge, grey hulk sports the red stars of the Soviet Union. No-one in the West has ever seen one before.

The jet lands on Hakodate’s concrete-and-asphalt runway. The runway, it turns out, is not long enough. The jet ploughs through hundreds of feet of earth before it finally comes to rest at the far end of the airport.

The pilot climbs out of the plane’s cockpit and fires two warning shots from his pistol – motorists on the road next to the airport have been taking pictures of this strange sight. It is some minutes before airport officials, driving from the terminal, reach him. It is then that the 29-year-old pilot, Flight Lieutenant Viktor Ivanovich Belenko of the Soviet Air Defence Forces, announces that he wishes to defect.

MiG-25 Foxbat after landing in Japan. Photo: Wikipedia Commons

"To evade both Soviet and Japanese military radar, Belenko had to fly very low – about 100ft (30m) above the sea. When he was far enough into Japanese airspace, he took the MiG up to 20,000ft (6,000m) so it could be picked up by Japanese radar."

As Recounted by The New York Times:

The Soviet pilot has been identified as Viktor I. Belenko, a lieutenant of the Soviet Air Force. The pilot spent the night at a secret place on the outskirts of Hakodate. The MIG‐25 was heavily guarded throughout the night by the police.

The Foreign Ministry has begun consultation with the United States Government on the request of the Soviet pilot for asylum in the United States. Japanese policemen are expected to resume questioning of the pilot tomorrow.

 

The Soviet Embassy in Tokyo asked the Foreign Ministry for permission to interview the pilot, but the ministry said it would have to investigate the incident first before making a decision. Later, the embassy reportedly demanded the immediate return of plane and pilot.

The Japanese armed forces said that when the Soviet plane was detected by the radar system at Chitose air base near Sapporo, Hokkaido, two Japanese F‐4 Phantom fighters were sent up to intercept it. But they could not find it and the plane vanished from radar screens as it came in too low for detection.

The plane circled over the airport twice and then landed, putting out a drag chute to slow it down. But it overshot the runway by about 800 feet. After firing his warning shots, he offered no resistance to the police who approached the plane. The airport was closed to commercial traffic shortly after the Soviet pilot had landed.

The Foxbat, which so many people had been so nervous about, turned out to a big and heavy plane that wasn’t particularly useful in combat. Because it needed so much fuel, it had a very short range. It was only fast in a straight line. After it came the MiG-31, an updated variant with increased capability.

Belenko eventually became a U.S. citizen and an aeronautics engineer and consultant to the U.S. Air Force. Once inspection of the MiG-25 was finished, it was partly put back together and shipped back to the USSR in crates. The BBC notes that the Japanese then sent the Soviets a $40,000 bill for shipping costs and for the damage Belenko caused to the Hakodate airport when he landed the giant plane.

You can read the rest of the story here on BBC article.