The Day The Cold War Got Warm
The Army taught me to fly. Nowadays, I have my own zippy little airplane. I do love it so.
A big part of the appeal to flying for me is the pure, unfiltered freedom. I have owned fast cars before, but there are just so many places where you can exercise those things properly. However, down here, where I live, most airspace is uncontrolled. Keep your head on a swivel, and don’t do anything stupid, and the world is your oyster. However, aviating is indeed notoriously intolerant of inattention.
Take the wrong exit on the interstate, and the worst thing that can happen is you’re a quarter-hour late to your daughter’s dance recital. However, let yourself get preoccupied while at the controls of an airplane, and things can quickly get intense. Make that a spanking new Mikoyan MiG-21PFM fighter and a trivial little mistake can become an international incident in an instant.
Background
In 1967, the world was reliably fractionated between East and West. Both sides invested astronomical amounts of money and effort into trying to slaughter the other wholesale. The entire planet was a hairsbreadth away from utter nuclear devastation. In no place was the situation more tense than Berlin.
The vagaries of geography placed the German capitol well inside East Germany. In an imperfect effort at maintaining some kind of détente, the city was divided into East and West halves, each with its own distinct infrastructure. That included fairly extensive airfield facilities.
On Feb. 13, a Soviet fighter pilot named Captain Fyodor Zinoviev was flight lead for a group of four brand new MiG-21PFM supersonic fighter planes flying into East Germany from Minsk. The day before, Zinoviev and his mates had picked up the state-of-the-art combat aircraft from the Mikoyan bureau factory outside of Moscow. Their final destination was the Cottbus Airfield in East Germany. However, sporadic cloud cover and unfamiliar terrain made navigation a challenge.
Cpt. Zinoviev had already earned himself a bit of Cold War notoriety. Two years before, while flying a MiG-19, Zinoviev shot down an American RB-66 reconnaissance aircraft. The RB-66 in question had wandered into enemy airspace, and the kill was considered righteous by the communists. The three American crewmembers ejected safely and survived. On this cold day in February, however, Cpt. Zinoviev was about to show the world how fast a combat pilot can go from hero to goat.
Letting down through a hole in the clouds, Cpt. Zinoviev spotted what he thought was Cottbus. The airfield in question, however, was actually Tegel Airport in West Berlin. At the time, Tegel played home to both French and American military aircraft. Zinoviev radioed the tower for landing instructions but got no response. Assuming his brand-new radio to be defective, the Russian pilot judged the wind and landed anyway. Meanwhile, his three buddies circled lazily overhead.
This rather glaring navigation error was not quite as egregious as you might think. These were the days before GPS and advanced navigation aids. I’ve seen the cockpit of a MiG-21, and it is incredibly cramped. It’s actually expecting a lot for a pilot flying at 600 knots through broken weather in a relatively unfamiliar airplane to navigate precisely with little more than a folded-up paper map. Regardless, Zinoviev touched down in the first third of the long runway and deployed his drogue chute to slow the powerful fighter plane. As he completed his landing roll, he noticed that something was amiss.
The aircraft lining the runway were predominantly French. Nearby, there were American airplanes as well, sporting their own distinctive markings. Cpt. Fyodor Zinoviev was now well and truly doomed.
The unexpected arrival of a spanking new MiG-21PFM at an active NATO airbase was cause for celebration. Allied airmen flocked to the runway both in vehicles and on foot. Before Zinoviev could do much about it, French troops had pulled a fire truck across his path, blocking the rest of the runway.
Among a variety of advanced capabilities, the new MiG-21PFM was designed for operations off of austere airfields. Thinking quickly, Cpt. Zinoviev jettisoned his drogue chute and spun the plane around in a quick 180-degree turn. He then firewalled the throttle, lit his afterburner and accelerated back in the wrong direction along what little runway he had available behind him. Zinoviev got the heavy plane airborne just as he ran out of concrete.
Once off the ground and clear, Zinoviev formed up with his buddies and proceeded to his appropriate destination. Upon landing, he supposedly kicked off his flight gear and reported to a nearby watering hole to get sloppy drunk. He didn’t bother to report his brief sojourn on NATO territory to his boss.
You can’t hide a mistake of that magnitude. Eventually, the details came out. When confronted by his division commander, the reception was mixed. Translated from the original Russian, his boss said, “For landing in Tegel, you’re a moron. For making it out successfully, you did good.”
The fact that Zinoviev had an actual kill against a NATO warplane counted to his credit, as did his quick-thinking reversal on the enemy runway. All in all, his commander figured everything evened itself out. Zinoviev went on to a successful career in the Red Air Force. Regardless, he was one of the few Cold War-era Soviet combat pilots who could truthfully say he had actually visited a NATO airbase, albeit only very briefly.