In November 1973, an Iranian plane suddenly invaded Soviet airspace to provoke, and the Soviet MiG-21SM fighter that was urgently launched fired two air-to-air missiles in a row but all went off target. In a hurry, the angry Soviet pilot chose to die together!
In northwestern Iran, a territory inserted into Azerbaijan like a wooden wedge is known as the "Imisrinsky Protrum". To its west, it was the Soviet Air Defense Zone in Baku in the Caucasus. During the Cold War, the United States relied on the "Central Treaty Organization" to provide Iran with F-5A fighters, RF-5E reconnaissance aircraft, T-38 military trainer aircraft and other aircraft, which often took off from The Iranian airport in Tabriz and flew along the air route bordering the Soviet Union on the "Imishlinsky Front" and carried out aerial reconnaissance and provocations in the Territory of the Soviet Union, making the situation in this area increasingly tense.
In the early morning of November 28, 1973, two Iranian Air Force aircraft once again appeared in the deep airspace of the "Imisrinsky Protrum". After some patrolling, soon one of the enemy planes flew deep into the mainland, and the other headed straight for the west bordering the Soviet Union.
According to the requirements of the Soviet Ministry of Defense, aviation units in the Caucasus were required to have an emergency duty squadron. On the same day, the foreman of the emergency squadron was Yeliseyev, who sat in the cockpit of the MiG-21SM early in accordance with the requirements of the first-level combat duty, ready to take off and fly to the airspace 250 kilometers from the airport for combat missions.
As soon as it was determined that the enemy aircraft had entered Soviet airspace, the baku air defense zone command post immediately issued an interception order to Yeliseyev's 982nd Fighter Aviation Regiment.
When the command post came to the "take off" order, Yeliseyev immediately started, quickly slid the plane to the runway, and accelerated into the air!
Yeliseev envisioned an enemy aircraft that was an American-made F-5A fighter with a flight altitude of 8,000 meters, but no matter what kind of aircraft it was, it was inferior to the MiG-21SM in terms of weaponry, flight speed, and altitude.
At a distance of 60 kilometers from the target, Yeliseyev turned on the airborne radar sight and spotted the suspected target at the first time.
He immediately turned on the friend or foe identifier, and a bright spot the size of a grain of rice appeared on the radar display, indicating that the other party was an enemy and not a friend!
So Yelseyev quickly reported to The Ground Navigator, Captain Giorne: "The target has been discovered and determined!" I'm going to start intercepting targets! The navigator ordered him to resolutely destroy the target!
At this moment, the enemy aircraft seemed to sense the crisis, suddenly changed course, and accelerated towards the Alas River at the border.
Yeliseyev could easily let the enemy run away, he was no longer hiding, and began to approach the target with the maximum projection ratio.
Sensing that the situation was not good, the enemy suddenly panicked and kept making maneuvering flights, trying to get rid of Yeliseyev's tracking.
The MiG-21SM is mounted with two AA-2 air-to-air missiles, belonging to the first generation of infrared air-to-air missiles, and its aerodynamic layout and performance are very similar to those of the American Sidewinder.
Because Yeliseyev was tracking the enemy aircraft almost in a curved manner, which caused the tail-chasing and firing of air-to-air missiles to have a small sector, coupled with overload requirements, the MiG-21SM could not launch missiles to attack enemy aircraft for a while.
All this was seen by Captain Jolne on the ground, who constantly communicated real-time data with Yeliseyev and tried every means to guide him close to the tail of the enemy aircraft.
Finally, thanks to Jornay's efforts and according to the guidance parameters, Yeliseev successfully locked the enemy in the airborne radar sight and decisively pressed the launch button of the AA-2.
But when Yeliseyev piloted the fighter through the clouds and into clear airspace, he found that the enemy plane was still in an airspace of 2-3 kilometers and had not been hit by missiles.
Yeliseev immediately caught up and fired a second AA-2 missile, but unfortunately the missile still failed to hit the target.
"Both missiles are off target, please instruct!" Yeliseyev reluctantly reported the situation to the ground.
At this time, the enemy aircraft was less than 15 kilometers away from the border line, and in a maximum of more than a minute, it would fly out of Soviet airspace. Seeing this, Giorne did not hesitate to issue the order to "hit the enemy aircraft.".
The ground alert radar of the Soviet Homeland Air Defense Force showed that the two bright spots in the air were getting closer and closer, and finally overlapped and gradually disappeared...
When Yeliseyev lost contact, the commander and deputy commander of the 982nd Aviation Regiment flew two MiG-21U fighters to the border area in search. On a hillside 10-15 km from the border, Deputy Regiment Leader Odenoliko spotted two parachutes.
In addition, they found a large number of enemy aircraft wreckage, which was determined by the investigation team that later rushed to the scene of the accident as an American T-38 trainer aircraft, not the F-5A they initially thought.
Unfortunately, Yeliseyev did not succeed in parachuting, and after driving the MiG-21SM at a speed of 1100 kilometers per hour into the enemy aircraft, he crashed into the cliff before he had time to parachute and died heroically. This was the first successful air impact in the history of world air combat after World War II.
As for why the two air-to-air missiles fell off target at that time, the Post-Accident Investigation Committee analyzed: One possibility is that Yeliseyev pressed the occurrence button under the conditions of tail-chasing and firing missile fan surface and excessive overload; the second possibility is that yeltsheyev pressed the launch button when the fan surface and overload met the requirements, but because the enemy plane used anti-missile evasion maneuver in time, he got rid of the missile attack.
However, it is worth mentioning that the AA-2 air-to-air missile, which the Soviet Union began to develop after obtaining the wreckage of the American "Sidewinder" AIM-9B in 1959, has a fatal flaw, that is, the problem of hit rate, and often appears to be somewhat powerless when dealing with fighters with better maneuverability... But Yeliseev used his courage to make up for this shortcoming.
On December 5, 1973, Yeliseev was buried in his hometown of Volgograd, and eight days later he was awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union", and at the same time, the Soviet Ministry of Defense issued an order to put Yeltseev's name forever on the roster of the 982nd Fighter Aviation Regiment.
