MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

For years he had been taught to fear and fight these planes created by the Americans. Now he awaited them as saving angels. His whole flight plan was predicated upon confidence that the Japanese would scramble fighters to force him down as soon as he intruded over their territory. He knew that the Russians were under orders to fire SAMs at any foreign aircraft violating Soviet territory, and he feared the Japanese would do the same unless he were met and escorted by their own interceptors. More important, he counted on the Japanese interceptors to lead him to a safe landing field. On an old map of Hokkaido he had discerned only one field, the military base at Chitose, which seemed large enough to accommodate a MiG-25. Perhaps the Japanese would lead him to a closer field unknown to him. Regardless, he probably had enough fuel to reach Chitose if they escorted him there promptly and directly. But they would have to find him on their own because his radio frequency band was so narrow he could communicate only with other MiGs.

Thrice during the descent the MiG sliced through thin layers of blue only to be engulfed anew in swirling dirty gray clouds, and not until it had dropped to 1,800 feet did Belenko find himself in clear sky. He circled, attempting to take visual bearings and locate Japanese interceptors. Nowhere could he see an aircraft of any type. Where are the Phantoms? Where are the damned Phantoms?

Both Phantoms and MiGs at that moment were all around, desperately searching for him. His plane first appeared on Japanese radar screens as an unidentified blip at 1:11 P.M. when he rose from the sea to 20,000 feet. Nine minutes later, with the blip moving toward the center of the screens, the commander of the Chitose base ordered Phantoms to take off for interception. Simultaneously the Japanese vainly tried to warn him away through broadcasts in both Russian and English. At 1:22, about the time he himself figured, Belenko breached Japanese airspace, and the Phantoms, vectored from the ground, closed upon him. However, at 1:26, as Belenko started to drift down in quest of clear sky, his MiG disappeared from the radarscopes, which, because of worsening atmospheric conditions, were already cluttered with confusing reflections from land and sea surfaces. Without any more guidance from the ground, the Phantoms flew about futilely in the overcast. Almost certainly, Soviet monitors heard the Japanese broadcasts and concluded that the plane being warned was Belenko's, for unidentified aircraft, presumably Russian, streaked toward Japan.

Ignorant of both the Japanese and the Soviet actions, Belenko had no time to conjecture about what might be happening. Neither did he have time for fear.

The Japanese aren't going to find you. At least, you can't count on them anymore. You'll have to take a chance. You have to decide, right now.

From the configuration of the coastline, initially visible to him about 1:30, he deduced that he was approaching Hokkaido's southwestern peninsula. Chitose lay to the northeast, roughly toward the middle of the island, behind a range of mountains still shrouded in clouds. The gauge indicated he had sufficient fuel for another sixteen to eighteen minutes of flight, maybe enough to carry him to Chitose if he immediately headed there. If he went back up into the clouds and over the unfamiliar mountains, however, he would forfeit all control of his fate. Only by sheer luck might he discover a hole in the clouds that would enable him both to descend safely and to sight the military field before exhausting his fuel. Without such good luck, the probabilities were that he would crash into some invisible peak or have to attempt a forced landing on impossible terrain. Had his purposes been different, he might have considered probing for a safe passage downward until his fuel was gone, then bailing out. But to Belenko, preservation of the MiG-25 was more important than preservation of his own life, and he was determined to land the plane intact if there was any chance, even one in a thousand.

Hence, he decided to stay beneath the clouds, fly eastward past the southern end of the mountain range, then turn north toward Chitose. He appreciated that he did not have enough fuel to follow this circuitous course all the way to the air base. But so long as he could see, there was a possibility of finding some place, a stretch of flat land, a highway perhaps, to try to land.