How it was №1 28.11.2000 (2000)

The program topic is "Battles in the Skies of Transcaucasia", 1973. 1973 was a year of incredible aggravation of the international situation.

The war in the Middle East threatened to escalate into an armed conflict between the superpowers.

On November 28, 1973, during a duty flight, fighter pilot Captain Gennady Eliseev was guided to a real target.

An intruder aircraft crossed the USSR border; it turned out to be an Iranian F-4 Phantom.

Captain Gennady Eliseev received the order "Target - destroy".

The order was carried out.

Eliseev fired two R-3 missiles at it, one he launched along the flight path of the enemy aircraft as a warning.

The intruder aircraft did not turn away.

Eliseev fired a second missile to destroy, but it lost its target in the clouds, the aircraft's cannon jammed.

An order came from the ground to stop the enemy at any cost.

It was unknown what equipment and weapons the intruder aircraft was carrying and what its target was.

Eliseev decided to ram the enemy by hitting his plane from below.

Captain Eliseev died.

Captain Eliseev was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

Details of this air battle in the skies of Transcaucasia and the first jet ramming became known only recently.

In 1981, fighter pilot, Air Force Captain Valentin Kulyapin repeated the feat of Gennady Eliseev, preventing a reconnaissance plane from violating the Soviet border.

Having detected the intruder at an altitude of 11,000 meters, Valentin Kulyapin's Su-15TM aircraft approached it and went on a parallel course.

Kulyapin began to signal the intruder to follow him.

It did not react and continued flying in the direction of the border.

Then the command came from the command post - "Shoot down the intruder!" The Su-15TM aircraft of Valentin Kulyapin approached the intruder and on the second attempt struck the right stabilizer of the transport plane with its fuselage.

After this, Kulyapin ejected, and the CL-44 went into a tailspin and fell 2 km from the border.

The crew died.

The program features: Eliseeva Lidiya - widow of Hero of the Soviet Union Eliseev Gennady.

Odnolko Anatoly - fellow serviceman of captain Eliseev.

Gastello Viktor - son of Hero of the Soviet Union Gastello Nikolai.

Kulyapin Valentin - captain of the Air Force of the Transcaucasian Military District, who repeated the feat of captain Eliseev in 1981. Video: Visit of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, interception of spy plane.