The desertion of the MiG-29

20 May, 1989.

Captain Alexander Zujev served as a MiG-29 pilot at Batumi airbase, Georgia near the the Black Sea. Just a little after his retraining for the MiG-29 type Zujev was grounded due to health problems and that time he decided the desertation. Zujev went to see his former squadrons' pilots being in readiness and took a pipe saturated with narcotic for them. When the narcotic took its effect to all the pilots Zujev went out to the take off ready planes and started to prepare it for the take off. After a while the guarding soldier found it suspicious that a captain prepared the plane instead of technicians and called him for explanation. They started quarreling and the guard shot Zujev more times and injured him on his left arm but finally the pilot managed to shoot the guard down with his pistol. Fearing that the noise of the shooting was heard by the crew of the airbase Zujev interrupted to prepare the MiG and he had no time to remove the red plastic caps covering the head of the R-27 missiles. After sitting in the aircraft the pilot started the starter engine from the battery and taxied to the runaway and took off once he made the engines start. In the air Zujev armed the GS-301 cannon and turned back and attacked the other readiness planes to be not able to take off and pursue him. The pilot chosse the commercial airport at Trabzon, Turkey as a destination because he could approach it by flying low over the sea and he did't fly to the more distant military airbases risking that the air defence may shoot him down. Turks were quite surprised when the MiG-29 landed at Trabzon and taxied to an outlying storehouse. The news of the desertation were a big sensation all over the world and although Zujev got a political asylum his MiG-29 was transported back to the Soviet Union in 30 hours on the board of an Il-76.