Viktor Ivanovich Belenko
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Viktor Ivanovich Belenko ( Russian Виктор Иванович Беленко ; born February 15, 1947 in Nalchik ) is an American aircraft engineer and former Soviet lieutenant and pilot.
Belenko deserted on September 6, 1976 with a MiG-25P - until then a military secret of the Soviet air forces - and landed in Hakodate, Japan . In doing so, he made the aircraft and its weapons, including the flight manual, accessible to Western opponents.
The government of the USSR disseminated information about an "emergency landing as a result of loss of orientation during a training flight", or rather: "the plane had deviated from its course ..." and "... foreign secret services drugged pilot Belenko". This was denied by Belenko by announcing: "I flew here voluntarily". As a result, the Soviet envoys in Japan began to threaten him openly.
The aircraft was examined by Japanese and US experts and later returned to the USSR in parts.
Belenko went to the United States and obtained American citizenship in 1980. For several years he taught tactics and strategy of aerial combat at a military academy. He married an American and raised two children with her (although he is still not divorced from his Russian wife, with whom he has a son). Recently he had his own trading company and traded with several countries, including Russia under an alias.
The former state Soviet and later the Russian media spread false information about Belenko's "accidental death" several times. In the USSR and today's Russian Federation he is considered a traitor to the state .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ulrich Langer: Luftfahrtdaten 1976 . In: Flieger-Jahrbuch 1978 . Transpress, Berlin 1977, p. 165 (content of a TASS report dated September 14, 1976).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Belenko, Viktor Ivanovich |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Беленко, Виктор Иванович |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American, formerly Soviet aircraft engineer and pilot |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 15, 1947 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nalchik |