1978 Iranian Chinook shootdown

1978 Iranian Chinook shootdown
	An Iranian Army Chinook similar to the helicopters shot down
Incident
Date	21 June 1978
Summary	Two helicopters shot down
Site	Inside the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, after straying from the Iranian border
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Cargo helicopter
Aircraft name	Boeing CH-47 Chinook
Fatalities	8
Survivors	4

The 1978 Iranian Chinook shootdown was an incident on 21 June 1978, when four

Imperial Iranian Air Force strayed into Soviet airspace during a training mission, with the result being that two of them were shot down by the PVO.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Shootdown

During the 1970s, numerous incidents, probably including

Ashkabad, detected four slow-moving contacts which came from Pahlavi Iran and penetrated 15 to 20 kilometers into the Soviet airspace near Dushak, in Turkmenistan

.

Five minutes later, these targets were detected by the radar site of Ak-Tepe Air Base, and the deputy commander of the 152nd IAP, Lt.Col. J. A. Miloslavsky, ordered one MiG-23M, flown by Capt. A. V. Dem'janov, to scramble. Once over the area, Dem'janov found only one helicopter, but misidentified it as a friendly Mil Mi-6. In addition, he got a command from the command post, "not to turn weapons on and not to come too close to the target". Because Dem'janov's answers to calls from the GCI station sounded uncertain, he was finally ordered back to Ak-Tepe AB and instead, at 06:52 AM, Lt.Col. Miloslavsky dispatched another MiG-23M, flown by Capt. Valery I. Shkinder.

Shkinder approached four contacts, identified them properly as

Qaraqum Canal, but when their crews detected the interceptor over them, they made a turn to the southwest and flew towards the Kopet mountains

and the Iranian border.

Diving behind the two rear Chinooks, Capt. Shkinder fired two

GSh-23L 23 mm gun, spending a total of 72 rounds in two passes and hitting the starboard engine of the CH-47C. The Iranian pilot was lucky enough to manage a landing near the Soviet border post at Gjaurs. All four crew members survived, but were subsequently captured by Soviet border guards

. The remaining two Chinooks escaped, crossing back into Iranian airspace.

Aftermath

Despite a severe loss of life for the IIAF, the incident was downplayed by both sides, and the Soviets subsequently permitted the damaged Chinook to be repaired by Iranians and flown back to Iran, together with all four crew members: Capt. Valery Shkinder was also not decorated for his feat; a proposal was made for him to get a Combat Red Flag Award, with the Kremlin rejecting the proposal "due to a very complex international situation". Ten years later in 1988 in a similar incident, two Soviet

Imperial Iranian Army Aviation (IIAA) Aero Commander 560 had been shot down by a Soviet MiG-17P.^[5]

References

^ "Soviet Downs Iranian Helicopter After It Strays, Killing the Crew". The New York Times. 18 July 1978. Retrieved 30 April 2017 – via NYTimes.com.
^ "The Day - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 30 April 2017.
^ "The MiG-23 combat record". Archived from the original on 2014-01-16. Retrieved 2014-01-14.
^ "Soviet Air-to-Air Victories of the Cold War", ACIG Journal, 23 October 2008.
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2014-01-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

[1] "Soviet Downs Iranian Helicopter After It Strays, Killing the Crew". The New York Times. 18 July 1978. Retrieved 30 April 2017 – via NYTimes.com.

[2] "The Day - Google News Archive Search". Retrieved 30 April 2017.

[3] "The MiG-23 combat record". Archived from the original on 2014-01-16. Retrieved 2014-01-14.

[4] "Soviet Air-to-Air Victories of the Cold War", ACIG Journal, 23 October 2008.

[5] "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2014-01-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

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