In the Soviet history of our country, there were several cases of hijacking of combat aircraft abroad, and some of the machines were also hijacked by pilots of the Warsaw Pact countries. Each of these incidents had serious consequences for all those involved and became the subject of rigorous investigation. One of the most famous cases is the hijacking of a MiG-25P fighter-interceptor to Japan on September 6, 1976. But the most cinematic episode, which included a cake with sleeping pills and a pistol shooting, occurred on the night of May 20, 1989, when an exemplary Soviet pilot, Captain Alexander Zuev, hijacked a MiG-29 fighter jet to Turkey.
Alexander Zuev with the American military
Alexander Zuev - an exemplary Soviet pilot
Alexander Mikhailovich Zuev was born on July 17, 1961, until 1989 his whole life was the life of an ordinary Soviet citizen who decided to link his fate with the army and succeeded in this matter. In 1982, Zuev successfully graduated from the Armavir Higher Military Red Banner Aviation School of Pilots. Already at that time, Alexander Zuev was considered an excellent pilot, as evidenced by his qualifications. By the time the plane was hijacked, he was already a captain and a 1st class military pilot.
The future defector served in the 176th IAP, initially flying on a third-generation MiG-23M fighter, a distinctive feature of which was a variable sweep wing. It is important to emphasize here that the MiG-23 was considered a very difficult aircraft for both flight personnel and ground technical personnel, which also indirectly shows that Alexander Zuev had excellent qualifications and was able to cope with piloting a machine that was not the easiest to control. It is no coincidence that it was Zuev who became one of the first pilots of the regiment, who began to retrain for the newest front-line fighter of the fourth generation, the MiG-29.
A new light fighter that replaced the MiG-23 began to enter the troops in 1983-1984. Alexander Zuev believed that the process of retraining for a new front-line fighter allowed him to avoid being sent to Afghanistan, although in reality the 176th regiment was never planned to be involved in hostilities in the territory of the Republic of Afghanistan. According to some reports, Alexander Zuev even managed to take part in military tests of new Soviet fighters, the main task of which was to gain air supremacy.
Alexander Zuev in a Turkish hospital
Back in the second half of the 1980s, Alexander Zuev dreamed of a career as a military pilot, planning to enter the prestigious USSR Test Pilot School (TSP) of the Ministry of the Aviation Industry. According to the memoirs of test pilot Alexander Garnaev, who personally knew Zuev, the latter had every chance to enter the test pilot school. According to the Hero of the Russian Federation Garanev, Alexander Zuev possessed all the necessary qualities, and his level of flight training stood out significantly and was higher than that of the average Soviet military pilots. By that time, Zuev was a first-class military pilot, flying the latest Soviet fighter aircraft, and all this at the age of 27. He still had a long military career ahead of him, which until a certain point was developing almost perfectly. Zuev was also lucky in his personal life, his marriage was successful, he married the daughter of the chief of staff of the air division.
Remembering Alexander Zuev, test pilot Alexander Garnaev noted two traits of his character: determination and perseverance. According to Garnaev, probing the ground for admission to the SHLI, Alexander Zuev specially came to the city of Zhukovsky, which was not the most open at that time, where he lived for a week in a school dormitory. In the hostel, Zuev was preparing for admission, the pilots already studying at the school advised him in detail on many issues. However, the next year, 1988, no test pilots were announced to enter the School, and Alexander Zuev did not wait another year, choosing instead of continuing his service a flight to Turkish Trabzon.
Today, it is impossible to say with certainty what exactly pushed the pilot, whose career was developing quite successfully, to betrayal of the Motherland. Yes, instead of continuing his career in the elite School of Test Pilots, Zuev returned to his 176th Fighter Aviation Regiment, which was located in Georgia at the airfield of the city of Tskhakaya (in 1989, the city was returned to its historical name Senaki). But it is unlikely that this alone could be the catalyst for the escape with the hijacking of a combat aircraft with weapons on board. Later, after the escape, there was a lot of evidence that Alexander Zuev drank, cheated on his wife, led a lifestyle unworthy of a Soviet officer. For low moral and moral qualities, according to the official version, he was suspended from flights. All of this is more like standard propaganda, which gained momentum after the escape to explain Zuev's betrayal.
Front-line fighter MiG-29
The captain himself, already in the United States, explained his act by the fact that he was more and more disillusioned with Soviet society and the communist system. According to him, he was influenced by the downed South Korean Boeing in 1983, the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, and the last straw was the armed dispersal of an opposition rally in Tbilisi on April 9, 1989, which led to civilian casualties. In this version, one cannot be one hundred percent sure either, since Zuev could simply list these events as a set of well-known cliches proving the monstrousness of the Soviet system and actively used in those years in the West for the same propaganda purposes. At the same time, the events in Tbilisi (Zuev's regiment was based in Georgia) and the inability to enter the school of test pilots in the aggregate could push the pilot to take radical steps. In any case, we will never know the truth, Alexander Zuev died in the United States in a plane crash on June 10, 2001, while flying a Yak-52 training aircraft. It is symbolic that the defector captain was eventually killed by a Soviet-made aircraft, so we can assume that Zuev's retribution did overtake, albeit with a delay in punishment.
Hijacking of a MiG-29 fighter to Turkey
The purposefulness of Alexander Zuev made itself felt in the preparation of the escape to Turkey, to the organization of which the captain of the Air Force approached creatively. First, the pilot bought a huge amount of sleeping pills in the nearest pharmacies, pretending to be a person suffering from insomnia and its consequences. Then he decided to play the birth of his son, at which time his wife was indeed pregnant and gave birth to a boy a few days after her husband's escape from the USSR. Having entered on the next evening watch at the airfield, Captain Alexander Zuev brought with him a baked cake with his own hand, which was filled with purchased sleeping pills. The officer on duty announced that his son was born (it was not possible to verify this information, since Zuev's wife had left to give birth to her relatives in Ukraine). The captain handed out a piece of cake to all the pilots and technicians who were in the duty room, and soon they all fell asleep safely. After that, Zuev damaged the alarm system and cut the communication cable.
Having completed the operation with the Trojan cake, Zuev went to the MiG-29 aircraft on duty, where he encountered an unforeseen difficulty. The planes were guarded by a young soldier-sentry, who, unexpectedly for the captain, strictly adhered to the charter and did not want to let the officer approach the planes. Realizing that his plan was on the verge of failure, Alexander Zuev approached the sentry and tried to disarm him. A struggle began, during which Zuev drew his service pistol and fired several times at the sentry, wounding him. In response, the already wounded sentry fired almost a whole horn from the AKM towards Zuev. By a lucky accident for the pilot, only two bullets hit him, one wounded the captain in the arm, the second only scratched his head.
MiG-29 under the protection of the Turkish military
Despite being wounded in the arm, Alexander Zuev was able to remove the pads, remove the plugs from the MiG-29 air intakes and the cover from the cockpit, start the engines and take off, flying the plane with almost one hand. After takeoff, the captain tried to implement the second part of his plan: after completing a combat turn, the pilot tried to shoot from the cannon the aircraft on duty on the ground in order to secure his escape. However, Zuev failed to carry out his plans. The cannon was silent, in a hurry the pilot forgot to remove the lock. Not wanting to take an unjustified risk, the pilot decided to leave the base as soon as possible and, turning on the afterburner, began to go towards the sea coast, dropping to a height of about 50 meters. After the shooting at the airfield, the alarm was raised, but the fighters that took off after 10 minutes were no longer able to intercept the intruder.
Alexander Zuev safely reached the Trabzon airfield, where he landed. His first words in Turkey were: "I am an American," so he hoped to attract the attention of the American embassy. Directly from the plane, the wounded pilot was sent to a Turkish hospital, while a criminal case was opened against the pilot for hijacking the plane. Later, Zuev was acquitted, the Turkish side agreed that the actions of the Soviet officer were of a political nature, and Alexander Zuev was granted American citizenship and political asylum.
But the plane itself, which was of great interest to the American military and aviation industry specialists, was not obtained. The Turks returned the fighter to the Soviet Union within a day and a half after the incident. However, Alexander Zuev himself, his knowledge and information were of interest to the American side. It is believed that he advised the US military during the preparation of Operation Desert Storm, since the Iraqi Air Force was armed with Soviet-made equipment, including MiG-29 fighters.
