The Belenko family after the hijacking. Soviet universities of Viktor Belenko

1976th. Aircraft hijacking detective.
Interestingly, he touched the edge of my relatives. The fact is that my brother's son-in-law studied with Belenko at the Stavropol School. And he served together in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. After Belenko's flight, he was suspended from flying - then the GB preferred to overdo it than not do it.
Brother, a retired officer, a front-line soldier, went to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and turned to the command, they say, do not ruin the guy's life.
The request of the veteran was respected and the son-in-law continued to fly.

And here are the details about the plane and Belenko himself.
I personally remembered that he seemed to have died in a car accident. It turned out - no. Still alive.
Original taken from dmgusev in About the traitor...

On September 6, 1976, a Soviet pilot, Senior Lieutenant Belenko, flying a MiG-25 interceptor, flew to Japan and asked for political asylum in the United States.

Probably, not a single Soviet aircraft can be compared in terms of the number of legends and rumors with MiG-25. His appearance at the air parade in 1967, held in Domodedovo, caused a sensation. A lot of articles appeared in the Western press, where attempts were made to evaluate a very unusual aircraft ...

The campaign in the press, and not only in it, took on a particularly wide scale in the United States. Journalists, representatives of aerospace firms. even congressmen and senators began to actively inflate the myth of the "superplane". posing the greatest threat to American air supremacy in any likely conflict.

Americans are extremely reluctant to admit (there is no talk of admiration at all!) The technical superiority of their rivals, it doesn't matter - the Russians. Germans or English. So what was the fuss about Foxbat for?

Industrialists were most interested in the newspaper hype. The fact is that the United States had its own Khrushchev from aviation - Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. He and his assistants at one time considered fighters to be an absolutely obsolete class of aircraft. on the refusal of the development of which you can save a lot.

As a result, for 15 years after the creation of the Phantom, work on the creation of new fighters in the United States was not carried out. Naturally. this state of affairs did not eliminate the guys from McDonnell-Douglas and General Dynamics. On the question "What is the MiG-25 and how to live with it?" - special congressional hearings were held.

The military-industrial lobby mixed deliberate untruths, reliable information, half-truths into a heap and achieved its goal: fighter design was resumed. Newspaper publications about the MiG slowly faded away, especially since there was no legal information on the aircraft; observers agreed that the MiG-25 is a three-wing air superiority fighter made primarily of titanium.

The Americans checked the validity of this statement in 1976.

At 13:11 On September 6, 1976, four radars of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces located on Hokkaido immediately spotted an air target 200 miles west of the coast of the island, heading towards Hokkaido at a speed of 440 miles / h at an altitude of 6700 m.

Seven minutes after its discovery, a pair of Phantoms rose from the Chitose airbase to intercept, meanwhile the air traffic control center still could not identify the target.

September 6, 1976 residents Japanese city The Hakodate were excited by the roar of the jet engine; having poured out into the streets, they saw a monstrous fighter (monster fighter) in the sky above the city. Having made three circles over the city, the fighter went to land at the local airport.

At 1 h 26 min. an unidentified object disappeared from the radar screens; it was not possible to direct the F-4J, and they returned to the airfield. An unidentified object was discovered at 01:52. over Hakodate Civil Airport. Above runway MiG-25 passed at an altitude of 300 m; his pilot clearly intended to land, but the runway was occupied by an All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 taking off.

After the Boeing took off, the MiG pilot made a couple of sighting approaches and at 01:57. landed. The plane touched the ground in the middle of the runway and, although the pilot released the flaps and brake parachute, the MiG overshot the entire runway, drove another 240 m on the ground and, having filled up two antennas of the instrumental landing system, stopped.

A Soviet MiG-25 fighter jet immediately after an off-schedule landing at Hakodate Airport. The man next to the plane is the pilot, senior lieutenant V.I. Belenko.

Then the action unfolded in the spirit of a cool Hollywood action movie. The pilot got out of the cockpit, who fired into the air from a regular PM. driving away curious employees, and from the immediately arrived airport management, he demanded to immediately close the plane with a tarpaulin. The MiG was towed first to the parking lot and then to the hangar.

The MiG-25 rolled out of the lane and stopped right in front of the aircraft catcher. Airport workers and police ran to him. Compared to the people who crowd around him, the MiG looks like a monstrous bird from a legend.The drag parachute released during landing is clearly visible. The front wheel, when the plane rolled out of the runway, exploded, but did not catch fire, which shows the high technical level of the Soviet aircraft.

The airport was closed for flights: for 5 hours not a single plane took off or landed from it. Soviet pilot, senior lieutenant. Viktor Belenko at first stated that he landed due to lack of fuel, but soon asked for political asylum, which the Japanese immediately denied him. However, there were still Americans, they were the main behind-the-scenes actors in the international scandal.

For a few days, Hakodate became the most famous city in the world. News agencies the whole world was smashed by the amazing news: "A Russian fighter has landed in Japan." The sensation was still the same ... Even in the USSR, there was a rumor for a long time that a test pilot had stolen the latest fighter aircraft to Japan.

A tape measure was immediately brought, and the experts began measuring the aircraft. After the plane rolled out of the runway, he demolished two antennas, but even a scratch is not visible on his wing

Belenko was not a test pilot, and the MiG-25 was by no means the newest aircraft in 1976, but this did not make it easier for our command. The rest of day 6 and the night from 6 to 7 September will surely be remembered forever by Japanese air defense officers: fighters of the Self-Defense Forces took to the air 143 times to intercept Soviet aircraft, flying in shoals near about. Hokkaido.

There were much more "guests" on the ground than in the air. The first Soviet citizen - he was the political officer of a merchant ship stationed in the port of Hakodate - tried to penetrate the MiG four hours after landing; he was not the only one so curious - during this time a decent crowd had gathered at the airport fence, but no one was allowed on the airfield.

Aerial shot. The plane rolled out of the runway by about 200 meters, because. Belenko put him in the middle of the lane.The braking track of the aircraft is clearly visible.

Soon the first officials arrived - two representatives of Aeroflot, a correspondent for Izvestia, the attaché of the British Air Force in Tokyo also got into the company with them, well, regular and freelancers KGB, CIA and their colleagues from other countries. Neither the pilot nor the aircraft were allowed.

It seems that the Japanese did not know what to do with Belenko's "gift". Only on September 8 the police (!!). and not the local state security department officially asked to examine the plane for the presence of explosive devices. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union demanded the immediate extradition of the pilot and the return of the aircraft.

Cunning Japanese. Certainly. they were not going to give the MiG away without thoroughly climbing it, and even more so they did not think to give it to Belenko.

A cursory inspection of the aircraft by representatives of the Hakodate police. According to experts, Soviet avionics lagged behind Western ones.

The reason for the detention of the aircraft and the pilot in Japan was found to be quite original: since the pilot illegally crossed state border Japan, his act is not diplomatic, but criminal. a criminal case has been opened against the pilot on illegal border crossing, in which the MiG-25 aircraft is considered as material evidence and cannot be returned until the full investigation is completed.

The Soviet Union, of course, did not take such explanations seriously, and continued to put pressure on the Japanese government through all channels in order to extradite the aircraft and the pilot. On the other hand, the US pressured the Japanese. pursuing diametrically opposed goals: to keep the MiG in Japan as long as possible and in no case to extradite Belenko.

Why did a Soviet plane with a Soviet pilot land in Hokkaido? A number of facts indicate that the guys from the US CIA were behind Belenko's flight.

The operation failed at the last stage. Belenko left for a routine training flight along with two more MiGs from the Sakharovka airfield, located 200 km from Vladivostok. Shortly after takeoff, he broke away from the formation, descended to a height of 45 m to get out of the field of view of the radar, flew near the ground for about 400 km and. gaining a height of 6000 m, headed for the Chitose airbase, where there were the longest runways in Hokkaido.

Alas, the Japanese airfield was covered with fog, and the fuel was running out. The pilot again dived to the ground (according to one version, in order to get away from the Japanese radars - they could have shot down, according to another - in order to find a landing site). Be that as it may, the MiG-25 landed at a civilian airport and there was not the slightest possibility to hide this fact.

The hijacking was publicized. The Americans had to make a formal request for a joint investigation into the incident. The Japanese Foreign Ministry was put in a difficult position, because such a request from the USSR was rejected, and the American one had to be rejected as well.

At the same time, Japanese officials did not rule out the participation of "foreign experts" in the study of "material evidence." the formal reason for this was the presence of “explosive devices” on board: no one had any doubts from which country these same experts would appear.

Why did the CIA (if American intelligence really was involved in this case) chased far from the newest aircraft? Perhaps not one Soviet aircraft there was no such conflicting information, and none of our aircraft, except for the MiG-25. did not receive the nickname "unbreakable".

MiG flights over Israel have already been written about many times. But Israel is not everything. At one time, there were legends at the MAI about the flights of the MnG-25 over Western Europe, then they were very skeptical about these bikes. as it turns out, in vain.

Did you find an issue of the Flight magazine dated April 10, 1976 in the TsAGI library with the article “MiG-25 over Britain”? At the end of March, the British Minister of Defense categorically stated that neither the MiG-25. nor any other high-speed aircraft did not invade air space Britain in the previous 12 months. Why such a statement?

It turns out that the US press claimed that Soviet MiG-25 reconnaissance aircraft regularly fly in the airspace of NATO countries.

Following the Americans, some English magazines published similar information. The author of the article in Flight was very skeptical about the possibility of such flights and argued. that it is quite simple to shoot down a MiG, for this you need to have “only” the Nika-Hercules air defense system or the F-14 fighter.

An article of similar content appeared around the same time in the French magazine Er et Cosmos. Ultimately, the issue of MiGs over Western Europe is still open. one thing is clear - from the military-technical side, this aircraft was capable of flying in the airspace of NATO countries. There were too few air defense systems capable of reaching the MiG-25 when it was flying on the ceiling at maximum speed.

The noise in the press could be raised on the basis of real facts, but could have been provoked by the Americans. In March-April, publications appeared on the topic of communist spy planes. and in September, a “live” MiG-25 landed in Japan. It is quite possible that the articles were intended to justify in advance the need to hijack and study such a dangerous aircraft for the countries of the “free world”.

The Japanese carried out the initial inspection of the aircraft in Hakodate, but it was clear that it would not be possible to study the MiG in detail at a civilian airport. We decided to transport the aircraft to the Hyakuri military airbase, located 80 km from Tokyo.

The difficulty was that the MiG fuselage did not fit into the Japanese C-1 military transport aircraft. "Good" Americans brought their S-5A for such a case. and on September 19, 64 Japanese specialists and 11 American "experts" who arrived from the Wright-Patterson airbase began preparing the MiG for transportation: wings and keels were undocked from the aircraft. tail, removed the engines, drained the fuel and oil.

On the night of September 24th. under the escort of 14 "Phantoms" and "Starfighters" of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, "Galaxy" with a precious cargo flew from a civilian airfield to a military one. At military airfields located along the flight route, F-4J units were on duty at readiness No. 1.

The precautions were not unfounded: during the flight, the radar spotted several unidentified objects near the coast of Japan, which, most likely, were Soviet aircraft.

In Hyakari, the MiG-25s were reassembled and prepared for detailed studies. They were not going to fly it, but the 200 liters of fuel remaining in the tanks after landing made it possible to carry out static tests of the engine; On October 3, both engines "chased" for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Due to the very high fuel consumption, Japanese fuel had to be added to complete the planned program of "firing" research on turbojet engines. The static thrust of each turbojet engine was 11 tons, as previously believed by many Western experts. Then, the MiG-25 rolled out onto the airfield was photographed in optical and PC spectra from the air by two RF-4Js.

It was noted that the data on the thermal signature of the Soviet fighter was especially valuable, which was very useful to the developers of the homing heads of air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles.

Detailed studies of the aircraft showed how much the West was mistaken in assessing its capabilities, technical specifications and structural features. The hijacked MiG-25 turned out to be not a multirole fighter, but a highly specialized high-altitude interceptor fighter.

It is significant - almost all observers agreed that the MiG-25 is the most advanced fighter-interceptor in the world. Its radar, although it is made on electron vacuum tubes and does not have a target selection mode against the background of the earth, is superior to Western ones.

The electronic equipment of the aircraft is quite primitive (one of the experts spoke about the elemental base of the F-4 and MiG-25 electronics in the spirit that "it's like comparing a transistor receiver with a gramophone"). but the overall integration of the weapon control system, autopilot, ground guidance system is at least as good as the best Western systems developed at the same time as the MiG-25 equipment.

The fuel system of the Soviet interceptor is significantly superior to the fuel system of the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft - the only aircraft in the world with flight characteristics close to the MiG-25.

The real discovery was the very modest use of titanium in the design of the MiG airframe: since in the West it was customary to consider the MiG-25 a "titanium" aircraft. its mass was previously significantly underestimated, but maximum speed overestimated: the MiG, apparently, still did not develop three "Machs", on the Belenko plane the red limiting line stood at a speed of M = 2.8.

In general, the aircraft was rated as "a high-altitude interceptor that has no equal, the distinguishing features of which are the simplicity of design, its strength, reliability, ease of maintenance and the availability of piloting the aircraft to pilots of not the highest qualifications."

The Japanese were pleasantly surprised by the range of the MiG-25: it was previously believed that Soviet fighters able to fly from Vladivostok to Tokyo and back. The supply of fuel in the internal tanks did not allow such a flight, and there were no fuel pipelines in the pylons of the Belenko aircraft - therefore, this MiG-25 could not carry external tanks.

Saved one headache. the samurai earned another: the military was struck by the ease with which the MiG left their air defense. In order to plug holes in the air defense system, it was decided to purchase E ~ 2C Hawkeye AWACS aircraft from the United States, capable of detecting low-flying targets.

It is interesting to note that the issue of acquiring the Hokaev self-defense forces had already been raised, but then it was considered that the existing air defense system was fully coping with its tasks.

"Research" was completed on 5 October.
To say that the hijacking of the MiG-25 was painfully experienced in the USSR is to say nothing. All movements of the aircraft in Japan, the situation around it were closely monitored, and there was constant pressure along diplomatic lines.

On September 22, the Soviet ambassador in Tokyo handed over a note of protest to the Japanese Foreign Ministry expressing dissatisfaction with the position of the government of the country of the rising sun regarding aircraft research: the note stated that if Japan's position remained unchanged. a sharp deterioration in bilateral relations is possible.

Diplomatic demarches did their job, and on September 27, Prime Minister Takeo Miki announced that the MiG-25 aircraft would be returned to the USSR, but not earlier than October 5, when Japanese and American experts planned to complete their studies.

"Research" was accompanied by the removal of samples of materials from everything possible, starting from the LDPE rod and ending with the insulation of electrical wiring, so returning the aircraft "home" by air was out of the question. An agreement was reached to return the MiG to the USSR aboard a transport vessel.

The Soviet representatives demanded financial compensation for the damage caused aircraft in the process of “investigating” a criminal case on illegal border crossing. The technical condition of the aircraft was to be assessed by specialists from the USSR, but the Japanese, although they agreed to pay compensation, refused to allow the Russians to enter the airbase.

Inspection of the MiG was to be carried out during daylight hours. from sunrise to sunset, on board the ship, in the presence of Japanese experts. On the night of November 11-12, a convoy of trucks delivered the plane, disassembled and carefully packed in 13 containers, to the port of Hitachi, where the Soviet ship was already moored.

The Japanese did not spare a good tree, various nail-screws for packaging - the calculation was that almost all the time allotted for inspection would be spent on "opening" the aircraft. Alas. they did not hear the Russian proverb “to break - not to build”, and the anecdote about the Russian crowbar and the Japanese saw passed by their ears.

A team of muscular guys very quickly decomposed the Japanese boxes into pieces, after which the Mikoyan Design Bureau specialists got down to business. It turned out that the Japanese did not return most of the electronic components, in particular, the "friend or foe" identification system. In the end, the Japanese were billed 7.7 million rubles, which at the then exchange rate corresponded to about 11 million dollars.

The Sons of the Rising Sun did not remain in debt and requested $40,000 for two antennas damaged by Belenko during landing at Hakodate Airport and for the transportation of the remains of the MiG from Hyakari to Chitose. After the settlement of financial issues on November 15, the ship left the Japanese port.

What happened to Belenko? Of course, he did not wait in Japan for the completion of the investigation of the "criminal case." The United States granted him political asylum, and a few days after September 6, he flew overseas.

Moral and financial losses Soviet Union the resulting hijacking to Japan were huge. Over the next two years, electronic equipment had to be replaced on all MiG-25 aircraft. "friend or foe" system in general on all Air Force aircraft.

By the way, the hijacking of the MiG-25 was not the first and not the last case when the MiGs flew away at the will of the pilots piloting them to a potential enemy. But in 1976, for the first time, a plane was hijacked by a Soviet pilot.

Until now, disputes have not subsided about who Viktor Belenko really was: a recruited agent who was waiting in the wings, or a spontaneous hijacker driven by personal motives.
He does not reveal his essence in the book, which he quickly concocted upon his arrival in the United States.

The KGB officers, of course, turned over his entire biography and stumbled upon many interesting facts, who still speak in favor of recruiting a pilot.

The first thing that came to light was that there was not a single childhood photograph in the family archive that could identify his personality. Even though they were available.

Further - during the years of cadet studies, going on vacation, he preferred to go to small northern cities. He never told his comrades what he was doing there, and generally did not say anything about vacation affairs.

As it turned out, Belenko did not visit his parents from the time of cadet studies until the treacherous flight, although he helped them financially.

And, finally, the most suspicious feature, according to which any excellent student can be considered a spy - he studied well at the flight school and was very interested in combat aircraft. He was the most active reader of the garrison library and often turned to the special unit for secret technical literature.

Scheme of the final section of the route of the irrevocable flight of V. Belenko, which ended with a landing in Hakodate on September 6, 1976.

"A" - The location of Viktor Belenko's aircraft, where he was met by duty fighters raised to intercept him, and where, afraid of being shot down, he “left” pursuit, descended to low altitude and headed for Misawa.

"B" - The alleged location of Viktor Belenko's aircraft at the time of his visual detection of the Hakodate airfield and the subsequent decision to land on it.

"B" - Hakodate Airfield, where Viktor Belenko completed his irrevocable flight.

The last fact that speaks in favor of recruitment, although it is unsteady. Hijacking the plane, Belenko flew to the American military base Chitoze, but the cloudiness in the area forced him to land on a civilian airfield.

Disputes disputes, suspicion suspicions, but now it's too late to talk about something, and you can't even ask the culprit of the emergency - a person died.

But as it turned out, it was all a bluff. Belenko is alive. Either there was a car accident, or it was just invented. They also say that a double died instead of him. But this is also speculation.

All these years, Viktor Belenko humbly worked in one of the American aviation firms. Again, they say that he was ready to meet with our pilots who came to America, but they refused these meetings. They had nothing to talk about with the traitor.

Three years ago, the Tokyo television company Nexus decided to make a film about a former Soviet pilot. Director Akiro Mitsumori believes that there is still an ambivalent attitude towards Belenko in Japan. Some consider him a hero who told the truth about the USSR. For others, he is just a traitor.

The film group working in America managed to meet with Belenko and interview him. He explains his action in exactly the same way as in 1976.

Nothing was known about the personal life of the former pilot all these years, and the Japanese director managed to find out something. It seemed to him that Belenko was not very arranged in life.

In the mid-80s, now already the last century and millennium, a pilot, captain V .Radko. It became known from him that the wife of V. Belenko, living in Armavir, changed her surname to her maiden name and married a civilian.

Belenko lives in California, wandering around hotels and motels. At first he taught technique and tactics. air combat at one of the military academies. Over time, his knowledge became outdated and he switched to lecturing about events, customs and traditions in the USSR. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, his lectures ceased to be relevant. The only thing America thanked him for was granting him citizenship.

He has to earn his livelihood through business. And at one time Belenko married an American, with whom he has three children. However, then he divorced and left her, according to the marriage contract, the house. But, as the director said, Belenko does not look despondent - a typical cheerful American.

In Russia, the Japanese film group faced failure. They failed to meet with Belenko's wife, who now lives in Lipetsk, and most importantly, the Japanese were not allowed to enter the airfield in Chuguevka, from where Belenko took off. The fate of the aviator, at least a little, but cleared up, but what happened to the plane?

It would seem that only the Americans have won in the whole history. But no, as it turned out, they planted a time bomb under themselves.

After the MIG-25P was involuntarily declassified, export restrictions were lifted from it. Iraq immediately took advantage of this and purchased 20 aircraft. Syria went further and acquired 30 cars, and Algeria did not lag behind. Soon MIGs will show themselves in battles with American fighters. The top will be behind the MIGs.

"Stimulated" Belenko and the creation of an even more advanced MIG-25PD (modified interceptor). In 1978, the aircraft plant in Gorky had already mastered the production of these machines. They had a new locator, the armament was replenished with missiles, and a heat direction finder was also installed, which made it possible to detect hidden targets on the ground. So there is no bad without good...

The Americans checked the validity of this statement in 1976.

Seven minutes after its discovery, a pair of Phantoms rose from the Chitose airbase to intercept, meanwhile the air traffic control center still could not identify the target.

On September 6, 1976, the inhabitants of the Japanese city of Hakodate were excited by the roar of a jet engine; having poured out into the streets, they saw a monstrous fighter (monster fighter) in the sky above the city. Having made three circles over the city, the fighter went to land at the local airport.

At 1 h 26 min. an unidentified object disappeared from the radar screens; it was not possible to direct the F-4J, and they returned to the airfield. An unidentified object was discovered at 01:52. over Hakodate Civil Airport. A MiG-25 passed over the runway at an altitude of 300 m; his pilot clearly intended to land, but the runway was occupied by an All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 taking off.

A Soviet MiG-25 fighter jet immediately after an off-schedule landing at Hakodate Airport. The man next to the plane is the pilot, senior lieutenant V.I. Belenko.

Then the action unfolded in the spirit of a cool Hollywood action movie. A pilot got out of the cockpit, who fired into the air from a regular PM, driving away curious employees, and from the airport management who arrived immediately, he demanded to immediately close the plane with a tarpaulin. The MiG was towed first to the parking lot and then to the hangar.

The airport was closed for flights: for 5 hours not a single plane took off or landed from it. The Soviet pilot, senior lieutenant Viktor Belenko, at first stated that he landed due to lack of fuel, but soon asked for political asylum, which the Japanese immediately denied him. However, there were still Americans, they were the main behind-the-scenes actors in the international scandal.

For a few days, Hakodate became the most famous city in the world. News agencies around the world carried the amazing news: "Russian fighter has landed in Japan." The sensation was still the same ... Even in the USSR, there was a rumor for a long time that a test pilot had stolen the latest fighter aircraft to Japan.

Belenko was not a test pilot, and the MiG-25 was by no means the newest aircraft in 1976, but this did not make it easier for our command. The rest of day 6 and the night of September 6-7 will surely be remembered forever by Japanese air defense officers: fighters of the self-defense forces took to the air 143 times to intercept Soviet aircraft flying in schools near about. Hokkaido.

Aerial shot. The plane rolled out of the runway by about 200 meters, because. Belenko put him in the middle of the lane.The braking track of the aircraft is clearly visible.

Soon the first officials arrived - two representatives of Aeroflot, a correspondent for Izvestia, the attaché of the British Air Force in Tokyo also got into the company with them, but they were followed by full-time and freelance employees of the KGB, the CIA and their colleagues from other countries. Neither the pilot nor the aircraft were allowed.

It seems that the Japanese did not know what to do with Belenko's "gift". Only on September 8, the police, and not the local state security department, officially asked to examine the plane for the presence of explosive devices. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union demanded the immediate extradition of the pilot and the return of the aircraft.

The cunning Japanese, of course, were not going to give up the MiG without thoroughly climbing it, and even more so they did not think of giving up Belenko.

A cursory inspection of the aircraft by representatives of the Hakodate police. According to experts, Soviet avionics lagged behind Western ones.

The reason for the detention of the aircraft and the pilot in Japan was found to be quite original: since the pilot illegally crossed the state border of Japan, his act is not diplomatic, but criminal, a criminal case has been opened against the pilot on illegal border crossing, in which the MiG-25 aircraft is considered as material evidence and cannot be returned until the full investigation is completed.

The Soviet Union, of course, did not take such explanations seriously, and continued to put pressure on the Japanese government through all channels in order to extradite the aircraft and the pilot. On the other hand, the United States put pressure on the Japanese, pursuing diametrically opposite goals: to keep the MiG in Japan as long as possible and in no case to extradite Belenko.

Why did a Soviet plane with a Soviet pilot land in Hokkaido? A number of facts indicate that the guys from the US CIA were behind Belenko's flight.

The operation failed at the last stage, Belenko went on a routine training flight along with two more MiGs from the Sakharovka airfield, located 200 km from Vladivostok. Shortly after takeoff, he broke away from the formation, descended to a height of 45 m to get out of the field of view of the radar, flew near the ground for about 400 km and. gaining a height of 6000 m, headed for the Chitose airbase, where there were the longest runways in Hokkaido.

Alas, the Japanese airfield was covered with fog, and the fuel was running out. The pilot again dived to the ground (according to one version, in order to get away from Japanese radars, they could have shot down, according to another, in order to find a landing site). Be that as it may, the MiG-25 landed at a civilian airport and there was not the slightest possibility to hide this fact.

The hijacking was publicized. The Americans had to make a formal request for a joint investigation into the incident. The Japanese Foreign Ministry was put in a difficult position, because a similar request from the USSR was rejected, and the American one had to be rejected as well.

Why did the CIA (if American intelligence really was involved in this case) chased far from the newest aircraft? Perhaps, there was no such conflicting information on any Soviet aircraft, and none of our aircraft, except for the MiG-25, received the nickname "indestructible".

MiG flights over Israel have already been written about many times. But Israel is not everything. At one time, there were legends at the MAI about MiG-25 flights over Western Europe, then they were very skeptical about these bikes and, as it turns out, in vain.

Did you find an issue of the Flight magazine dated April 10, 1976 in the TsAGI library with the article “MiG-25 over Britain”? At the end of March, the UK Secretary of Defense categorically stated that neither the MiG-25 nor any other high-speed aircraft had invaded British airspace in the previous 12 months. Why such a statement?

It turns out that the US press claimed that Soviet MiG-25 reconnaissance aircraft regularly fly in the airspace of NATO countries.

The noise in the press could have been raised on the basis of real facts, or it could have been provoked by the Americans. In March-April, publications appeared on the topic of communist spy planes. and in September, a “live” MiG-25 landed in Japan. It is quite possible that the articles were intended to justify in advance the need to hijack and study such a dangerous aircraft for the countries of the “free world”.

The difficulty was that the MiG fuselage did not fit into the Japanese C-1 military transport aircraft. "Good" Americans brought their S-5A for such a case. and on September 19, 64 Japanese specialists and 11 American "experts" who arrived from the Wright-Patterson airbase began preparing the MiG for transportation: wings, tail fins were undocked from the aircraft, engines were removed, fuel and oil were drained.

On the night of September 24, under the escort of 14 "Phantoms" and "Starfighters" of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, "Galaxy" with a precious cargo flew from a civilian airfield to a military one. At military airfields located along the flight route, F-4J units were on duty at readiness No. 1.

The precautions were not unfounded: during the flight, the radar spotted several unidentified objects near the coast of Japan, which, most likely, were Soviet aircraft.

Detailed studies of the aircraft showed how much the West was mistaken in assessing its capabilities, technical characteristics and design features. The hijacked MiG-25 turned out to be not a multirole fighter, but a highly specialized high-altitude interceptor fighter.

The real discovery was the very modest use of titanium in the design of the MiG airframe: since in the West it was customary to consider the MiG-25 a "titanium" aircraft. its mass was previously significantly underestimated, but the maximum speed was overestimated: the MiG, apparently, still did not develop three Machs, on the Belenko plane the red limiting line was at a speed of M = 2.8.

The Japanese were pleasantly surprised by the range of the MiG-25: it was previously believed that Soviet fighters were capable of flying from Vladivostok to Tokyo and returning back. The supply of fuel in the internal tanks did not allow such a flight, and there were no fuel pipelines in the pylons of the Belenko aircraft - therefore, this MiG-25 could not carry external tanks.

Having got rid of one headache, the samurai earned another: the military was struck by the ease with which the MiG left their air defense. In order to plug holes in the air defense system, it was decided to purchase E ~ 2C Hawkeye AWACS aircraft from the United States, capable of detecting low-flying targets.

On September 22, the Soviet ambassador in Tokyo handed over to the Japanese Foreign Ministry a note of protest expressing dissatisfaction with the position of the government of the country of the rising sun regarding aircraft research: the note stated that if Japan's position remained unchanged, a sharp deterioration in bilateral relations was possible.

The Soviet representatives demanded financial compensation for the damage caused to the aircraft during the "investigation" of the criminal case on illegal border crossing. The technical condition of the aircraft was to be assessed by specialists from the USSR, but the Japanese, although they agreed to pay compensation, refused to allow the Russians to enter the airbase.

The Japanese did not spare a good tree, various nail-screws for packaging - the calculation was that almost all the time allotted for inspection would be spent on "opening" the aircraft. Alas, they did not hear the Russian proverb “to break - not to build”, and the anecdote about the Russian crowbar and the Japanese saw went past their ears.

What happened to Belenko? Of course, he did not wait in Japan for the end of the investigation of the "criminal case" The United States granted him political asylum, and a few days after September 6 he flew overseas.

The moral and financial losses of the Soviet Union as a result of the hijacking to Japan were enormous. Over the next two years, it was necessary to replace the electronic equipment on all MiG-25 aircraft with the "friend or foe" system on all Air Force aircraft in general.

The KGB officers, of course, turned over his entire biography and stumbled upon many interesting facts that still speak in favor of recruiting a pilot.

The first thing that came to light was that there was not a single childhood photograph in the family archive that could identify his personality. Even though they were available.

Further - during the years of cadet studies, going on vacation, he preferred to travel to small northern cities. He never told his comrades what he was doing there, and generally did not say anything about vacation affairs.

As it turned out, Belenko did not visit his parents from the time of cadet studies until the treacherous flight, although he helped them financially.

Scheme of the final section of the route of the irrevocable flight of V. Belenko, which ended with a landing in Hakodate on September 6, 1976.

"B" - The alleged location of Viktor Belenko's aircraft at the time of his visual detection of the Hakodate airfield and the subsequent decision to land on it.

"B" - Hakodate Airfield, where Viktor Belenko completed his irrevocable flight.

The last fact that speaks in favor of recruitment, although it is unsteady. While hijacking a plane, Belenko flew to the US military base in Chitoze, but cloudiness in the area forced him to land on a civilian airfield.

Disputes disputes, suspicion suspicions, but now it's too late to talk about something, and you can't even ask the culprit of the emergency - a person died.

But as it turned out, it was all a bluff. Belenko is alive. Either there was a car accident, or it was just invented. They also say that a double died instead of him. But this is also speculation.

The film group working in America managed to meet with Belenko and interview him. He explains his action in exactly the same way as in 1976.

Nothing was known about the personal life of the former pilot all these years, and the Japanese director managed to find out something. It seemed to him that Belenko was not very arranged in life.

Belenko lives in California, wandering around hotels and motels. Initially, he taught the technique and tactics of air combat in one of the military academies. Over time, his knowledge became outdated and he switched to lecturing about events, customs and traditions in the USSR. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, his lectures ceased to be relevant. The only thing America thanked him for was granting him citizenship.

It would seem that only the Americans have won in the whole history. But no, as it turned out, they planted a time bomb under themselves.

At the age of two, his parents were abandoned by his mother and brought up by relatives, and then by his father and stepmother. In 1965 he graduated from high school with a silver medal. Before being drafted into the army, he worked at the enterprises of Omsk. For one semester he studied at, at the same time he studied at the DOSAAF flying club.

Service in the Armed Forces

Flight

After breaking away from a training flight partner, Belenko descended to a height of about 30 m, which allowed him to avoid detection by both Soviet and Japanese radars. Deepening into Japanese airspace, Belenko climbed to an altitude of about 6000 m and was spotted by Japanese air defense systems; The Japanese failed to contact Belenko, since the MiG-25 radio was tuned to a different frequency. Fighters were raised to intercept the unknown intruder, however, by the time they appeared, Belenko again descended and disappeared from the radar. Belenko planned to land on Chitose Air Base, but due to lack of fuel was forced to land at the nearest airfield, which turned out to be Hokodate.

Investigation

In order to comprehensively study his personality, one hundred and sixteen people from among relatives and colleagues were interviewed. Data were collected on the state of health, relationships with the command and in the family, moral and political qualities, and attitudes towards Soviet reality. At the same time, there were no data on treasonous intentions. It was not noted that he was interested in the standard of living in the West, in particular the American one.

At the same time, it became known that Belenko once expressed dissatisfaction with the living conditions of the flight crew, an unregulated working day, and the frequent cancellation of days off. At the same time, he said that American pilots were less busy in the service.

Various insinuations circulated in the West that Belenko had been recruited by American intelligence before his escape were not confirmed. Apparently, they were made for propaganda purposes.

The data obtained during the operational investigation, in their entirety, did not give grounds to believe that Belenko flew abroad, guided by selfish motives.

Forced landing version

The possibility of a forced landing was also indicated by Belenko's unusual behavior at the Hakodate airport (he fired a pistol, did not allow photography, demanded that the plane be covered). Attention was drawn to the attitude of the Japanese police towards him, who, when taking him out of the airfield, put a bag over his head and roughly pushed him into the car.

This version is untenable, since during a search of his apartment after escaping, under the windowsill they found a map (made by V. Belenko) with calculations for a flight to China. According to Vladimir Tsarkov (chief of aviation of the 10th Air Defense Army in 1976), this card was fake in order to “cover up the tracks” after the escape.

Escape version

On the other hand, the conclusions of specialists, objective data of devices, conclusions about technical condition systems and equipment of the aircraft indicated that the forced landing of the MiG-25P in Japan was unlikely. The flight took place in simple weather conditions. The coastline was clearly visible from all heights. The pilot could see the sun and navigate by it.

[In the US] I met cosmonaut Igor Volk. He said: “You seem to have died!”, - I replied: “Not so fast.” The KGB spread rumors about my murder to discourage others.

original text(English)

A cosmonaut named Igor Volk. […] He says, "you supposed to be dead!" I said, "not so fast", because the KGB spread rumor that I was killed -- so they could prevent other incidents and scare people.

Consequences of the escape

In the official propaganda statements of that time, the consequences were not assessed objectively, as they were custom-made. In particular, in addition to statements about "moral and political damage", Belenko's escape was attributed to material damage to the USSR in the amount of about 2 billion rubles, since it was necessary to urgently change the equipment of the "friend or foe" recognition system throughout the country. A button appeared in the fighter's missile launch system, which removed the lock on firing at friendly aircraft. She received the nickname "Belenkovskaya".

Excesses in the actions of the party-official elite, which by that time had become systematic and massive, were studied and revealed. For example, indifference to the life of officers honestly fulfilling their duty against the background of personal career motives (in particular, turning the days off of subordinates into working days in order to quickly stand out with visible results).

Military Collegium Supreme Court USSR citizen Viktor Ivanovich Belenko, born in 1947, was convicted in absentia under article 64 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for treason and sentenced to capital punishment (execution).

Returning the plane to the USSR, Japan billed 40 thousand US dollars for the damage caused by Belenko to the Hokodate airport.

Write a review on the article "Belenko, Viktor Ivanovich"

Notes

Literature

John Barron. MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko, 1980, ISBN 0-380-53868-7
Oleg Sergeevich Smyslov.. - Veche, 2010. - 316 p. - ISBN 5953346697, 9785953346696.

An excerpt characterizing Belenko, Viktor Ivanovich

Her eyes smiled expectantly, the sponge with the mustache rose, and childishly happily remained raised.
Princess Mary knelt before her and hid her face in the folds of her daughter-in-law's dress.
- Here, here - do you hear? It's so strange to me. And you know, Marie, I will love him very much,” said Lisa, looking at her sister-in-law with sparkling, happy eyes. Princess Mary could not raise her head: she was crying.
- What's wrong with you, Masha?
“Nothing ... I felt so sad ... sad about Andrei,” she said, wiping her tears on her daughter-in-law's knees. Several times, during the morning, Princess Marya began to prepare her daughter-in-law, and each time she began to cry. These tears, for which the little princess did not understand the reason, alarmed her, no matter how observant she was. She didn't say anything, but looked around uneasily, looking for something. Before dinner, the old prince, whom she had always feared, entered her room, now with a particularly restless, angry face, and, without saying a word, went out. She looked at Princess Marya, then thought with that expression of eyes of inward-turning attention that pregnant women have, and suddenly burst into tears.
Did you get anything from Andrew? - she said.
- No, you know that the news could not come yet, but mon pere is worried, and I'm scared.
- Oh nothing?
“Nothing,” said Princess Marya, looking firmly at her daughter-in-law with radiant eyes. She decided not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide the terrible news from her daughter-in-law until her permission, which was supposed to be the other day. Princess Marya and the old prince, each in his own way, carried and hid their grief. The old prince did not want to hope: he decided that Prince Andrei had been killed, and despite the fact that he sent an official to Austria to look for the trace of his son, he ordered a monument to him in Moscow, which he intended to erect in his garden, and told everyone that his son is killed. He tried not to change his former way of life, but his strength betrayed him: he walked less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker every day. Princess Mary hoped. She prayed for her brother as if she were alive, and waited every minute for news of his return.

- Ma bonne amie, [My good friend,] - said the little princess on the morning of March 19 after breakfast, and her sponge with a mustache rose from the old habit; but as in all not only smiles, but the sounds of speeches, even gaits in this house, from the day the terrible news was received, there was sadness, even now the smile of the little princess, who succumbed to the general mood, although she did not know its cause, was such that she even more reminiscent of the general sadness.
- Ma bonne amie, je crains que le fruschtique (comme dit Foka - cook) de ce matin ne m "aie pas fait du mal. [My friend, I'm afraid that the current frischtik (as Chef Foka calls it) would not make me feel bad. ]
What about you, my soul? You are pale. Oh, you are very pale, said Princess Marya in fright, running up to her daughter-in-law with her heavy, soft steps.
“Your Excellency, why not send for Marya Bogdanovna?” - said one of the maids who were here. (Maria Bogdanovna was a midwife from county town, who had been living in Lysy Gory for another week.)
“And indeed,” Princess Marya picked up, “perhaps, for sure. I will go. Courage, mon ange! [Don't be afraid, my angel.] She kissed Lisa and wanted to leave the room.
- Oh, no, no! - And besides pallor, the face of the little princess expressed a childish fear of inevitable physical suffering.
- Non, c "est l" estomac ... dites que c "est l" estomac, dites, Marie, dites ..., [No, this is the stomach ... tell me, Masha, that this is the stomach ...] - and the princess began to cry childishly, suffering, capriciously and even somewhat feignedly, breaking their little arms. The princess ran out of the room after Marya Bogdanovna.
— Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! [My God! My God!] Oh! she heard behind her.
Rubbing her full, small, white hands, the midwife was already walking towards her, with a considerably calm face.
- Maria Bogdanovna! It seems to have begun, ”said Princess Marya, looking at her grandmother with frightened open eyes.
“Well, thank God, princess,” said Marya Bogdanovna without adding a step. You girls don't need to know about this.
“But why hasn’t the doctor arrived from Moscow yet?” - said the princess. (At the request of Lisa and Prince Andrei, they were sent to Moscow for an obstetrician by the deadline, and they were waiting for him every minute.)
“It’s okay, princess, don’t worry,” said Marya Bogdanovna, “and without a doctor everything will be fine.”
Five minutes later the princess heard from her room that something heavy was being carried. She looked out - for some reason the waiters were carrying into the bedroom a leather sofa that stood in Prince Andrei's office. There was something solemn and quiet on the faces of the carrying people.
Princess Marya sat alone in her room, listening to the sounds of the house, occasionally opening the door when they passed by, and looking closely at what was going on in the corridor. Several women walked to and fro with quiet steps, looked back at the princess and turned away from her. She did not dare to ask, shut the door, returned to her room, and either sat down in her chair, or took up her prayer book, or knelt before the kiot. To her misfortune and surprise, she felt that prayer did not calm her excitement. Suddenly the door of her room quietly opened and on the threshold appeared her old nurse, Praskovya Savishna, tied with a handkerchief, who almost never, due to the prince's prohibition, did not enter her room.
“I came to sit with you, Mashenka,” said the nanny, “yes, she brought the prince’s wedding candles in front of the saint to light, my angel,” she said with a sigh.
“Oh, how glad I am, nanny.
“God is merciful, dove. - Nanny lit candles entwined with gold in front of the icon-case and sat down at the door with a stocking. Princess Mary took the book and began to read. Only when footsteps or voices were heard did the princess look frightened, inquiringly, and the nanny looked at each other reassuringly. At all ends of the house, the same feeling that Princess Mary experienced while sitting in her room was overflowing and possessed everyone. I believe that what less people knows about the sufferings of the puerperal, the less she suffers, everyone tried to pretend to be ignorant; no one talked about it, but in all people, except for the usual degree and respect good manners who reigned in the prince's house, there was one kind of common concern, softening of the heart and consciousness of something great, incomprehensible, happening at that moment.
There was no laughter in the big girls' room. In the waiter's room, all the people sat in silence, ready for something. On the courtyard they burned torches and candles and did not sleep. The old prince, stepping on his heel, walked around the study and sent Tikhon to Marya Bogdanovna to ask: what? - Just tell me: the prince ordered to ask what? and come and tell me what she will say.
“Report to the prince that the birth has begun,” said Marya Bogdanovna, looking significantly at the messenger. Tikhon went and reported to the prince.
“Very well,” said the prince, shutting the door behind him, and Tikhon no longer heard the slightest sound in the study. A little later, Tikhon entered the office, as if to fix the candles. Seeing that the prince was lying on the sofa, Tikhon looked at the prince, at his upset face, shook his head, silently approached him and, kissing him on the shoulder, went out without adjusting the candles and without saying why he had come. The most solemn sacrament in the world continued to be performed. The evening passed, the night came. And the feeling of expectation and softening of the heart before the incomprehensible did not fall, but rose. Nobody slept.

It was one of those March nights when winter seems to want to take its toll and pour out its last snows and snowstorms with desperate anger. To meet a German doctor from Moscow, who was expected every minute and for whom a set-up was sent to big road, to turn into a country road, horsemen with lanterns were sent to guide him through potholes and gaps.
Princess Mary had long since left the book: she sat in silence, fixing her radiant eyes on the wrinkled, familiar to the smallest detail, face of the nanny: at the strand of gray hair that had come out from under the scarf, at the hanging bag of skin under the chin.
Nanny Savishna, with a stocking in her hands, in a low voice, without hearing or understanding her own words, told hundreds of times about how the deceased princess in Chisinau gave birth to Princess Marya, with a Moldavian peasant woman, instead of a grandmother.
“God have mercy, you never need a doctor,” she said. Suddenly a gust of wind blew on one of the exposed frames of the room (by the prince’s will, one frame was always set up with larks in each room) and, having beaten off the poorly pushed bolt, ruffled the damask curtain, and smelling of cold, snow, blew out the candle. Princess Mary shuddered; the nanny, putting down her stocking, went up to the window, and leaning out began to catch the open frame. A cold wind ruffled the ends of her handkerchief and gray, stray strands of hair.
- Princess, mother, someone is driving along the prefecture! she said, holding the frame and not closing it. - With lanterns, it must be, dokhtur ...
- Oh my god! God bless! - said Princess Mary, - we must go to meet him: he does not know Russian.
Princess Marya threw on her shawl and ran to meet the travelers. When she passed the front hall, she saw through the window that some kind of carriage and lamps were standing at the entrance. She went out onto the stairs. A tallow candle stood on the railing post and flowed from the wind. The waiter Philip, with a frightened face and with another candle in his hand, was standing below, on the first landing of the stairs. Even lower, around the bend, on the stairs, steps could be heard moving in warm boots. And some kind of familiar voice, as it seemed to Princess Mary, was saying something.
- God bless! said the voice. - And the father?
“Go to sleep,” answered the voice of the butler Demyan, who was already downstairs.
Then a voice said something else, Demyan answered something, and steps in warm boots began to approach faster along an invisible turn of the stairs. "This is Andrey! thought Princess Mary. No, it can’t be, it would be too unusual, ”she thought, and at the same moment as she thought this, on the platform on which the waiter was standing with a candle, the face and figure of Prince Andrei in a fur coat with a collar sprinkled with snow. Yes, it was him, but pale and thin, and with a changed, strangely softened, but anxious expression on his face. He entered the stairs and hugged his sister.
- You didn't get my letter? he asked, and without waiting for an answer, which he would not have received, because the princess could not speak, he returned, and with the obstetrician, who came in after him (he had gathered with him at the last station), with quick steps again entered the ladder and hugged his sister again. - What a fate! - he said, - Masha is dear - and, throwing off his fur coat and boots, he went to the half of the princess.

The little princess was lying on pillows, in a white cap. (Suffering had just let go of her.) Black hair curled in strands around her inflamed, sweaty cheeks; her ruddy, lovely mouth, with a sponge covered with black hairs, was open, and she smiled joyfully. Prince Andrei entered the room and stopped in front of her, at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying. Brilliant eyes, looking childish, frightened and agitated, rested on him without changing their expression. “I love you all, I didn’t harm anyone, why am I suffering? help me,” her expression said. She saw her husband, but did not understand the meaning of his appearance now before her. Prince Andrei walked around the sofa and kissed her on the forehead.
“My dear,” he said, a word he had never spoken to her. - God is merciful. She looked inquiringly, childishly reproachfully at him.
- I expected help from you, and nothing, nothing, and you too! her eyes said. She was not surprised that he came; she did not understand that he had come. His arrival had nothing to do with her suffering and its relief. The torment began again, and Marya Bogdanovna advised Prince Andrei to leave the room.
The obstetrician entered the room. Prince Andrei went out and, meeting Princess Marya, again approached her. They started talking in a whisper, but every minute the conversation fell silent. They waited and listened.
- Allez, mon ami, [Go, my friend,] - said Princess Mary. Prince Andrei again went to his wife, and sat down in the next room waiting. Some woman came out of her room with a frightened face and was embarrassed when she saw Prince Andrei. He covered his face with his hands and sat there for several minutes. Pathetic, helpless animal moans were heard from behind the door. Prince Andrei got up, went to the door and wanted to open it. Someone held the door.
- You can't, you can't! said a frightened voice from there. He began to walk around the room. The screams ceased, a few more seconds passed. Suddenly a terrible scream - not her scream, she could not scream like that - was heard in the next room. Prince Andrei ran to the door; the cry ceased, the cry of a child was heard.
“Why did they bring a child there? Prince Andrei thought at first. Child? What? ... Why is there a child? Or was it a baby? When he suddenly understood all the joyous meaning of this cry, tears choked him, and, leaning on the windowsill with both hands, he sobbed, sobbing, as children cry. The door opened. The doctor, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, without his coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, left the room. Prince Andrei turned to him, but the doctor looked at him in bewilderment and, without saying a word, passed by. The woman ran out and, seeing Prince Andrei, hesitated on the threshold. He entered his wife's room. She lay dead in the same position in which he had seen her five minutes earlier, and the same expression, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of her cheeks, was on that lovely, childish face with a sponge covered with black hairs.
“I love you all and have done no harm to anyone, and what have you done to me?” her lovely, pitiful, dead face spoke. In the corner of the room, something small and red grunted and squeaked in Marya Bogdanovna's white, trembling hands.

Two hours later, Prince Andrei with quiet steps entered his father's office. The old man already knew everything. He stood at the very door, and as soon as it opened, the old man silently, with senile, hard hands, like a vise, clasped his son's neck and sobbed like a child.

Three days later, the little princess was buried, and, saying goodbye to her, Prince Andrei ascended the steps of the coffin. And in the coffin was the same face, although with closed eyes. "Oh, what have you done to me?" everything said it, and Prince Andrei felt that something had come off in his soul, that he was guilty of guilt, which he could not correct and not forget. He couldn't cry. The old man also entered and kissed her wax pen, which lay high and calm on the other, and her face said to him: “Ah, what and why did you do this to me?” And the old man turned away angrily when he saw that face.

Five days later, the young Prince Nikolai Andreevich was baptized. Mammy held the diapers with her chin, while the priest smeared the boy's wrinkled red palms and steps with a goose feather.
The godfather, the grandfather, fearing to drop, shuddering, carried the baby around a crumpled tin font and handed it over to the godmother, Princess Marya. Prince Andrei, trembling with fear lest the child be drowned, sat in another room, waiting for the end of the sacrament. He joyfully looked at the child when his nanny carried him out, and nodded his head approvingly when the nanny informed him that the wax with hairs thrown into the font did not sink, but floated along the font.

Rostov's participation in the duel between Dolokhov and Bezukhov was hushed up through the efforts of the old count, and Rostov, instead of being demoted, as he expected, was appointed adjutant to the Moscow governor general. As a result, he could not go to the village with the whole family, but remained at his new position all summer in Moscow. Dolokhov recovered, and Rostov became especially friendly with him at this time of his recovery. Dolokhov lay ill with his mother, who passionately and tenderly loved him. Old Marya Ivanovna, who fell in love with Rostov for his friendship with Fedya, often spoke to him about her son.
“Yes, count, he is too noble and pure in soul,” she used to say, “for our present, corrupted world. No one likes virtue, it pricks everyone's eyes. Well, tell me, Count, is this fair, is it honestly from Bezukhov's side? And Fedya, in his nobility, loved him, and now he never says anything bad about him. In St. Petersburg, these pranks with the quarterly were joking there, because they did it together? Well, nothing to Bezukhov, but Fedya endured everything on his shoulders! After all, what did he endure! Let's say they returned it, but why not return it? I think there were not many brave men and sons of the fatherland like him. Well now - this duel! Do these people have a sense of honor! Knowing that he is the only son, challenge him to a duel and shoot so straight! It's good that God has mercy on us. And for what? Well, who in our time does not have intrigue? Well, if he is so jealous? I understand, because before he could make you feel, otherwise the year went on. And well, he challenged him to a duel, believing that Fedya would not fight, because he owed him. What meanness! That's disgusting! I know you understand Fedya, my dear Count, that's why I love you with my soul, believe me. Few people understand him. This is such a high, heavenly soul!

Born: February 15, 1947 in the city of Nalchik. It seems that he has not died yet, but he is lost ...
September 6, 1976 flew to Japan on the MiG-25P interceptor ( side number 31). Received political asylum in the United States.

Version based on excerpts from Wiki:

Born in Nalchik in a working-class family. In 1965 he graduated from high school with a silver medal. Before being drafted into the army, he worked at the enterprises of Omsk.

In 1967 he entered the Armavir Higher Pilot School, which he successfully graduated in 1971. He was sent to serve as an instructor pilot at the Stavropol Aviation School. In service characteristics and attestations throughout the service in the army, he was characterized positively. Member of the CPSU. He was elected a member of the Komsomol and party bureau. In 1975, he was transferred to the Far East (at his request) and was assigned to the 11th Separate Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment (Chuguevka (Primorsky Territory). As a senior pilot, he flew the MiG-25P interceptor fighter (tail number - "31") .

September 6, 1976 at 06:45 Belenko took off from the Sokolovka airfield (Primorsky Krai) to perform a flight exercise. At 9:15 a.m., Japanese radio broadcast that the MiG-25P aircraft, manned Soviet pilot Belenko, landed at the Hakodate airport (Hokkaido island). Subsequently, the Japanese authorities made an official notification that Belenko had asked for political asylum. On September 9, he was taken to the USA. The aircraft was disassembled, subjected to a detailed study by Japanese and American specialists, and returned to the USSR on November 15, 1976.

To investigate Belenko's escape, a special group of the KGB of the USSR was created. In order to comprehensively study his personality, one hundred and sixteen people from among relatives and colleagues were interviewed. Data were collected on the state of health, relationships with the command and in the family, moral and political qualities, and attitudes towards Soviet reality. At the same time, there were no data on treasonous intentions. It was not noted that he was interested in the standard of living in the West, in particular the American one. Among his entourage, he condemned the former pilot-instructor of the Armavir school Safronov, who flew to Iran in 1973.

According to his wife, he did not listen to foreign radio broadcasts himself and did not allow her to listen. Forbidden to correspond with a school friend who married a foreigner and lived in Italy. At the same time, it became known that Belenko once expressed dissatisfaction with the living conditions of the flight crew, an unregulated working day, and the frequent cancellation of days off. At the same time, he said that American pilots were less busy in the service.

Various insinuations circulated in the West that Belenko had been recruited by American intelligence before his escape were not confirmed. Apparently, they were made for propaganda purposes.

The data obtained during the operational investigation, in their entirety, did not give grounds to believe that Belenko flew abroad, guided by selfish motives.

Issues related to the possibility of a forced landing of Belenko in Japan were subjected to deep study. There were good reasons for this. He had a fairly high theoretical background and, as a pilot, a sufficient level of flight training on the MiG-25P aircraft. This is evidenced by the fact that the flight was carried out from the duty forces to intercept a control target that followed a course in the coastal area (between Nakhodka and Vladivostok.) The possibility of an emergency landing was also indicated by Belenko's unusual behavior at Hakodate airport (shot from gun, did not allow to take pictures, demanded to cover the plane). Attention was drawn to the attitude of the Japanese police towards him, who, when taking him out of the airfield, put a bag over his head and roughly pushed him into the car.

On the other hand, the conclusions of experts, the objective data of the instruments, the conclusions about the technical condition of the systems and equipment of the aircraft indicated that the forced landing of the MiG-25P in Japan was unlikely. The flight took place in simple weather conditions. The coastline was clearly visible from all heights. The pilot could see the sun and navigate by it.

According to the conclusion of the State Research Institute of the Air Force, which examined the objective data of the automatic flight parameters recording system (SARPP) returned by the Japanese along with the aircraft, Belenko practically kept a direct course to the island of Hokkaido and did not make any turns. The examination confirmed that the SARPP film belonged to his aircraft.

The SARPP system also recorded that Belenko left the training area towards the sea, dropping sharply to 250 m. At this height, he flew over the sea surface from the coastline of the USSR for about 130 km. Such actions of the pilot, according to experts, could indicate his desire to get away from radar tracking.

Belenko’s personal documents (certificate of a 1st class instructor pilot, school-leaving certificate, diploma of graduation from a military school, birth certificate) were not found among his belongings and relatives, although according to his wife they were in their apartment. The report of the foreign press noted that Belenko was returned the documents confiscated from him during the police detention, among which is a birth certificate. It can be assumed that Belenko took all these documents with him.

A comprehensive study of Belenko's personality, his behavior in the service and at home showed that he repeatedly had acute conflict situations with the command. So, during the period of service in the Stavropol aviation school he expressed an insistent desire to leave the instructor's work and, in connection with this, sought various opportunities for transfer to a combat regiment. However, these attempts were not successful, since the command, as a rule, did not release instructor pilots from the school to the troops. For this reason, he began to show discontent and sharply aggravated relations with the commanders. In 1975, he submitted a report to the head of the school with a request to dismiss him from the Soviet Army, arguing that he did not want to serve with commanders who constantly abuse alcohol, which was partially true.

During the first six months of service in a new place, Belenko has established himself with positive side, successfully completed a retraining course on a new type of MiG-25P aircraft for him, was appointed acting chief of staff of the squadron, and was elected deputy secretary of the party bureau of the squadron. He treated his duties in good faith. He did not express dissatisfaction with his position or disorder.

Around July 1976, oddities in his behavior began to be noticed. He became nervous, agitated. Painfully experienced the delay in the assignment of the next military rank of captain and with the appointment to the post of chief of staff of the squadron promised during the transfer.

On September 6, despite the conflict situation, he was included in scheduled flights and arrived at the airfield. As he headed towards combat aircraft to make the flight, one of the pilots noticed that Belenko was pale, red spots appeared on his face and neck. After landing in the cockpit, being in a state of nervous excitement, with trembling hands, he could not connect the radio station chip for a long time and was able to do this only with the help of a technician.

The materials of the investigation testified that Belenko really had reason to be dissatisfied with his official position. His term of service in the military rank of "senior lieutenant" ended on January 10, 1976, but until September he did not receive the rank of captain due to the sluggishness of command. The promised post of chief of staff of the squadron gave him the right to enter the academy, where he was very eager.

The investigation concluded that the flight was made intentionally, although without direct treasonous intentions. Belenko's actions were decisively influenced by the negative traits of his character: selfishness, increased self-esteem, resentment, irritable malice, which aggravated in a conflict situation.

Life in the USA The reliability of this section of the article has been called into question. It is necessary to verify the accuracy of the facts stated in this section.

Having received political asylum from the Americans (with the active assistance of US President Gerald Ford), Belenko taught air combat techniques at one of the military academies for several years.

Belenko was included among the specialists of the group formed by the CIA, which studied the tape recordings of the negotiations of Soviet pilots with the ground during the incident with a Korean passenger plane shot down on Far East in September 1983.

It is also known that in 1982 Belenko contacted the employees of the Soviet military attache in the United States on the issue of returning to his homeland. However, for unknown reasons, he did not bring his intention to the end.

Here is how Belenko described visiting the supermarket:
My first visit to the supermarket was under the supervision of the CIA, and I thought it was staged. I did not believe that this store could be real. It seemed to me that since I was an unusual guest, they could play a prank on me. After all, it was such a beautiful spacious building with incredible amount goods and without queues. In Russia, everyone is used to long lines. Subsequently, when I realized that the supermarket was real, I enjoyed getting to know new products. In Russia of that time, however, and in the present - it is difficult to find good canned food. So I bought a variety of canned foods every day. Once I bought a jar with the inscription "Lunch" and fried its contents with potatoes, onions and garlic - it turned out delicious. The next morning, my friends told me that I had eaten canned chicken for cats. But they were delicious! They were better than those canned food for people that are still made in Russia today!

In a marriage with an American, he had three children. After the divorce, according to the terms of the marriage contract, he left the house to his second wife. In 1980, in collaboration with writer John Barron, he published the book "MiG Pilot" (John Barron, "MIG Pilot").

In addition to the moral and political damage, Belenko's escape inflicted material damage on the USSR, estimated at about 2 billion rubles, since it was necessary to urgently change the equipment of the "friend or foe" "Silicon" recognition system throughout the country to the "Password" system (the latter, however, by 1976 it had already been developed).

Comments 7

Tom

What the hell ..... the Americans, apparently, are made of more durable material? No?! And which of them was sold for canned Whiskas of "higher quality" or left the family forever for the sake of "life's blessings"?

They were better than those canned food for people that are still made in Russia today! I did not believe that this store could be real. And now, thanks to Belenko, it falls entirely into the hands of American specialists.

Belenko managed to react in time and avoided a collision. But it should be noted that because of Belenko's betrayal, the equipment had to be changed in an emergency.

“The MiG-25 was called the “flying grocery store” due to the fact that it was filled with 200 liters of alcohol”

Born in Nalchik in a working-class family. After the divorce of his parents at the age of two, he was left by his mother and brought up by relatives, and then by his father and stepmother. In 1965 he graduated from high school with a silver medal.

“Belenko told reporters that he visited Russia in 1995, despite the death sentence that he received in the USSR”

September 6, 1976 at 06:45 Belenko took off from the Sokolovka airfield (near the village of Sokolovka, near the regional center of Chuguevka) to perform a flight exercise. At 09:15, Japanese radio broadcast that the MiG-25P aircraft (tail number - "31"), piloted by the Soviet pilot Belenko, landed at Hakodate Airport (Hokkaido Island). Subsequently, the Japanese authorities made an official notification that Belenko had asked for political asylum.

Data were collected on the state of health, relationships with the command and in the family, moral and political qualities, and attitudes towards Soviet reality. It was not noted that he was interested in the standard of living in the West, in particular the American one. At the same time, it became known that Belenko once expressed dissatisfaction with the living conditions of the flight crew, an unregulated working day, and the frequent cancellation of days off.

The fate of the pilot-defector

Various insinuations circulated in the West that Belenko had been recruited by American intelligence before his escape were not confirmed. The data obtained during the operational investigation, in their entirety, did not give grounds to believe that Belenko flew abroad, guided by selfish motives.

The possibility of a forced landing was also indicated by Belenko's unusual behavior at the Hakodate airport (he fired a pistol, did not allow photography, demanded that the plane be covered). In addition, taking advantage of the sloppiness of a mechanic, Belenko refueled full tanks aircraft, instead of the permitted half, motivating that it will fly a little longer and not to refuel twice.

You may also be interested…

A comprehensive study of Belenko's personality, his behavior in the service and at home showed that he repeatedly had acute conflict situations with the command. Around July 1976, oddities in his behavior began to be noticed. On September 6, despite the conflict situation, he was included in scheduled flights and arrived at the airfield.

Once I bought a jar with the inscription "Lunch" and fried its contents with potatoes, onions and garlic - it turned out delicious. In the USA] I met cosmonaut Igor Volk. In the official propaganda statements of that time, the consequences were not assessed objectively, as they were custom-made. Excesses in the actions of the party-official elite, which by that time had become systematic and massive, were studied and revealed.

All comments (87)

That day was training flights. This picture was taken immediately after the MiG landed at a civilian airfield in Japan. Duty planes and helicopters immediately took to the air to search. Meanwhile, radars recorded a new target: it was gaining altitude and moving away in the direction of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Then we managed to find out how Belenko hid from the radar: he abruptly went down, simulating a plane crash, and disappeared behind a huge hill, which is why he disappeared from the radar screens.

The defector was heading for the Chitose military air base in Japan. Apparently, fearing to be shot down, Belenko “dived” to a low altitude and went south. So he ended up over a small civil airfield Hakodate. The fuel in the tanks of the MiG was running out, and the pilot sent the car to land. At first, we did not believe in betrayal, we sincerely believed that Victor was dead. The next day, an order came to the regiment to identify all morally unstable pilots and remove them from flight work.

A whole landing force of KGB investigators was sent to the regiment, who were engaged in clarifying all the circumstances that preceded Belenko's escape. In particular, it was established that the defector had fled not at all on the plane on which he was supposed to fly. At first Soviet side tried to present the case as if the pilot was forced to land at a foreign airfield, demanded the return of the pilot and the plane. Belenko's wife and mother were brought to Moscow (by that time she had not seen her son for 13 years) and held a press conference with their participation.

Clearly, it was just a political game. In continuation of it, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan publicly expressed surprise that the USSR did not apologize for the actions of its pilot.

According to some Russian sources, Viktor Belenko died in a car accident in 1997 under mysterious circumstances. Therefore, Belenko had enough fuel to reach Japan. In Russia, everyone is used to long lines. Belenko asked for political asylum in the United States. Nevertheless, the Soviet representative Sadovnikov was allowed to meet with him. In an interview, he spoke about his first impressions of America: “My first visit to the supermarket was under the supervision of people from the CIA, and I thought it was a staging.