MiG-17

[No.1]

It would seem-MiG-17F jet fighters of the Syria Air Force at a field airfield. What could be unusual here and why are they guests? And it was like this. On August 12, 1968, 2 planes landed on the Moshava Betset unpaved runway in the Western Galilee, Israel. These were MiG-17s of the Syrian Air Force. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) won the Six-Day War against the coalition of Arab States a year earlier, and a War of Attrition began. Syria was considered an enemy, and therefore it was a real success to get a MiG'i.

But did the Syrian pilots voluntarily desert with their planes? No. They were unlucky with ... cards. Instead of modern ones, they used maps from 1945. There was no Israel on them yet, but a British military airfield near Betset, then located on the territory of Lebanon, was marked. The pilots were sure that they were landing in Lebanon.

The MiG-17Fs were thoroughly studied and tested by the Israeli Air Force. After that, one plane was given to the United States, and the second was transferred to the exposition of the Israeli Air Force Museum.

[No.1]

On September 4, 1954, in the Nakhodka area, a pair of MiG-17 fighters from the Central Corner airfield ("Центральная Угловая") shot down a P2V-5 Neptune scout from the VP-1 squadron of the US Navy, which fell into the sea 35 km south of Cape Ostrovnaya (Островной). Its crew is still considered missing. There is an alternative version that the plane was shot down by "friendly fire" of fighters, as the identification system "friend-foe" was damaged.

[No.1]

"Intruder"

On July 1, 1968, the Douglas DC-8 Super 63CF airliner of Seaboard World Airlines with b/n N8631 took off from the McCord military Base, USA, and headed for Japan, to Yokota Air Base. There were 24 crew members and 214 military personnel on board, who were flying from vacations and hospitals to South Vietnam. During the flight, the airliner deviated from the course by ~ 150 km and flew over the Kuril Islands, thereby violating the state border of the USSR.

A MiG-17 link was raised to intercept, forcing the violator to land at the Burevestnik (Буревестник) airfield on Iturup Island. Warning shots were fired for this purpose. During and after the interception of the DC-8, its crew and passengers were not injured. Although the first landing approach could have ended in disaster ? the American airliner miraculously did not crash into the Grozny volcano. But KVS Joseph D. Tosolini successfully landed his plane on a runway a little more than 1200 meters long. The crew, passengers and the DC-8 itself were on the island of Iturup for two days, after which they were released.