The Story of the Pilotless Soviet Mig-23 That Invaded the West & Crashed in Belgium, 1989.
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- Опубліковано 13 лют 2023
- On the morning of 4th July 1989, a lone Soviet Union Mig-23 fighter left its base in Poland and headed west. Its course would fly over Soviet East Germany before crossing over the iron curtain into West Germany. After passing through Dutch airspace it entered Belgium and was on a course towards Lille in France when it fell from the sky and crashed into the Belgium countryside. This story is remarkable enough but even more so when you discover that this Soviet fighter did not have a pilot on board; it was flying itself.
This is the story of one of the most bizarre incidents involving a Cold War Jet. Happening in the closing days of the Cold War, it could still have escalated into a serious incident between the USSR and NATO.
A single Mig 23 fighter bomber left it's base for a routine flight but the pilot ejected soon after take off. The plane didn't crash however and continued flying west on autopilot. Crossing East Germany it then invaded the west and NATO territory before eventually running out of fuel. The Mig-23 then flying over Belgium, crashed into farmland in the Belgian countryside.
As it turned out, it was hastily forgotten, although not for the family of the single fatality caused by the incident. The Mig 23 crashed onto a farmhouse in Kortrijk, Belgium and killed 18 year old Wim Delaere.
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Credits & Attributions
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Original radio comms
• Mig 23 down Belgie_000... - Розваги
The pilot must have got in HUGE trouble for this. Strange that he punched out before checking all the available systems.
What I was reading was that he felt he only had a few seconds before hitting the ground. Less than 500 feet beneath his aircraft.
@@TheNorthernHistorian Yeah, but he didn't notice the plane was still ascending or was in level flight.
I know Russian pilots get very little flight hours, but this sounds like a rookie mistake.
@@TheNorthernHistorian I agree, pilots only get a split second to make a decision, especially at that height. I wonder why the Soviets (excuse me, Warsaw Pact) authorities didn't take it out while still in their own airspace.
The same happened in the US, look up the cornfield bomber. F106 that kept going after eject
It has happened many other times, the simple fact that the pilot ejects, canopy gone, seat gone, a lot of weight is out and the CG changes.. plane suddenly wants to fly
@@stijnvandamme76Maybe there should be 2 options for ejection:
#1-Standard, cuts fuel to the engines 5-10s post-ejection to ensure crash in expected proximity.
#2-Alternate ejects as is, to be used when a pilot can maintain flight of a crippled plane and needs to have the aircraft follow its autopilot post-ejection aimed in a safe direction.
Rip to the young 18 year old who died. We will never forget you. God speed my friend
Great to have you back mate, hope you're well! 👍
Thanks. I'm doing good thanks.
I remember this very well, it was a huge story back then. As I had just joined the army as a conscript this was a great start of my cold war military "adventure" ;-)
Thank you for this video. Makes me wonder about all of the other incidents during the cold war.
There was a Harrier in Germany, the pilot bailed out after a bird strike stopped the engine, it then recovered and flew on towards the Soviet border, NATO scrambled a fighter to shoot it down but it ran out of fuel and crashed before the intercept. Then when I lived near Dunsfold there was also a Harrier that did similar after taking off from there in 1987, eventually crashed into the Atlantic off from Ireland, the pilot's body was recovered from Wiltshire. In that case a malfunctioning eject blew the pilot through canopy killing him.
Thank you for this very interesting video
Glad you enjoyed it
I'm glad to see you are still creating content.
the tube-u-all hasn't kept me informed as per usual.
I hope all is well.
Thank you for the kind comment. I had to take some time away for personal reasons but I'm back now and have many video ideas. Stay tuned.
@@TheNorthernHistorian consider me staying tuned
3:40 East Germany was not "a part of the Soviet Union" of course, but of the Warshau pact militairy treaty. Ouchhhhh !!!!
great , welcome back
Thanks!
I live about 1 km from the bagicz airport. I often go there by bike.These days is a place where the local sunrise festival is hosted.Althought some hangars have been demolished and most of the runway is severly damaged it still howewer is a functioning airport for small private planes wnich don't need as much of a runway.(No jets of course).And they have bulid housing estetes around the airport where a lot of people life (thought it might be loud out there during the festival)
I think its a shame that the local authorites didn't turn it into a bigger airport and i think it is to late for that now, because a lot of people live on a very close proximity to the runway.
By the way on the way to the airport there is a beautiful lake that is right next to the Baltic sea(Baltic sea left next to the path ,the lake on the right)where a lot of birds and other wonderful animals like for example beavers live.
Best version of this I've seen . Had to explain everything to her cold war ect while watching a couple others . Their loss your gain I've subscribed, why wouldnt you put in cold war so neutral watchers know the significance of a mig in NATO airspace 🍻
I'm from Belgium and saw the F-15's screaming over our heads. Never saw an F-15 before. Belgium has F-16's right. I was on my way to France and just made a pitstop on rhe highway. To learn like an hour or so later that 'a jet' had crashed on a farm.
An interesting tale. Could have been so much worse.
I’m half German and I have a cousin that flew 21s, 23s and Su 22s for the East German AF during the Cold War, and the MiG 29 before reunification. He flew and retired on Tornado. He died last year. He was my Maverick.
Sorry to hear that buddy...RESPECT
Legend
I’m Belgian and I hadn’t heard of this.
East Germany was never part of the Soviet Union. It wascoartbof the Warsaw Pact, which was dominated by the Soviet Union.
Fair point Neil. Perhaps I should have worded that differently. Cheers
@@TheNorthernHistorian I fully understood.split hairs and all that..great upload Sir.
Topical with the recent F35 debacle. What’s amazing is that planes flying themselves for hundreds or even thousands of miles is not rare. But usually someone unconscious or dead is onboard. Only about a half dozen have had no pilot at all.
Oi, that map of the Netherlands at 4:20 is wildly inaccurate.
Those estuaries drawn below the border, is the province of Zeeland.
Awesome story though, imagine this sparking a hot war...
Whenever Irish are involved, expect frivolities
Situations like this happen from time to time. The bigger issue at the time is the Russians never alerted anyone.
A MiG 23 crashed just a few days ago at a US airshow.. pilot ejected.✈️
That is so sad.
I agree, a terrible ending.
A former teacher of mine knew the guy who died in the crash, I know the story because him too.
Major pilot screw up.
Seems like he panicked and ejected from what was essentially a perfectly functional aircraft, minus the burner.
Sure he was slowing down at low alt and descending, but if it was still cruising at 700+ KPH and climbed all the way to 40k feet when intercepted, it almost seems he didnt even try to fly it and determine control abilities once the burner unlit and just punched out.
Probably should have tried pulling the stick back more to stop his decent, then determine if the aircraft was capable of maintaining enough speed in level flight with enough of a safety margin for time to punch out once it was determined there was complete engine failure. Even if there was a flame-out he could've attempted re-lighting the engine, so it'd need to be a failure of the engine itself to have no chance of saving it.
I'm just a civilian though with no personal experience on jets, so I also understand being "in" the situation is different and hindsight is 20/20. Where he went wrong I guess was convincing himself of a total engine failure before determining if that was actually true or not.
"East Germany, still a part of the Soviet Union".
I cringed hard at the historical illiteracy.
Got that one too.... Warshau pact of course, not USSR
When god helps you get tech from the enemies
Why would the U.S. Aircraft use a medium-range Sparrow on it ???
Not entirely sure of their thought process but I would have thought that their loadout would include sidewinders. Perhaps they thought that a radar guided missile would be more dependable over a short range heat seeker, possibly.
Perhaps, but Sparrows were almost always ineffective .@@TheNorthernHistorian
Umm, there's a difference between the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. East Germany (German Democratic Republic) was never part of the Soviet Union.
I remember it well, it came down 18 miles from here.
8m25
Its a bit silly to suggest that a decade earlier anything else would have happened.. its not like NATO was going to start a war over what was clearly an accident.
I wasn't for a minute suggesting that NATO would go to war over this incident. Yes it was an accident but the main anger directed towards the USSR was the silence for which they were renowned. Chernobyl, Kursk etc... A serious diplomatic event could have ensued and as history shows throughout the centuries, significant events can result quite easily from trivial events. Who would have predicted the day after an assassination in Sarajevo that the world would be drawn into a total war costing millions of lives? That's all I was saying. Thanks for the comment.
😂😂😂