Taran


28 November, 1973.

In this day two military aircraft circled over a promontory which reached into deeply the territory of the former Soviet Union. A few minutes later one of the aircrafts were disappeared but the other one is flew through the border and violated the Soviet airspace. Over the other side of the approximately 100 kilometres width and 100 kilometres long promontory there were two Russian fighter in the air but they were too far from the intruder and as they were on a training mission they were not armed, as well. This time the air defence ordered one of the pair of MiG-21 aircrafts being in readiness to take off and intercept the intruder while the other aircraft on ready were put into first degree readiness ( i.e. the pilot sits in the cockpit waiting the permission for the take off ). Captain Gennagyij Jeliszejev headed his aircraft toward the border to intercept and identify the unknown aircraft. According to the identification of the captain the intruder was probably an Iranian RF-4 E Phantom reconnaissance aircraft. The Russian pilot flew to the wingtip of the other aircraft and tried to sign the pilots to follow his plane and land by moving the MiG's wings up and down and using his radio and his hands. The crew of the spy plane got the signs but instead land on Soviet territory they speed up their aircraft and turned toward the border. This time the soviet pilot got the order to use his missiles and shot the intruder down. Jeliszejev activated the radar and locked on the enemy plane and tried to use the missiles against the intruder. The pilot of the Phantom was warned to the missile threat by his planes sensors and the pilot started to change his direction and altitude intensively and quickly because the missiles of the MiG were unusable against highly manoeuvring targets. As the border approached quickly and the ground control officer was afraid of failing the action they gave the shocking order to the pilot: No. 240, Taran. Jeliszejev acknowledged the order, deactivated the locator pushed the throttle to maximum afterburn and flew after the escaping Phantom. About the followings there are no valid data. The air controllers saw on their screen the two dot indicating the two aircraft to come closer and closer to eachother while they were united on the screen and slowly disappeared. They called Jeliszejev on the radio but there was no answer.

Gennagyij Jeliszejev who executed this order got the Hero of the Soviet Union medal after his death. His name was admitted as a life member to his squadron and it was always heard between the names of the living squadron members. The soviets named a school after him and the students of this school celebrated his heroism in every 28th November. They named a street after him in his home town. There is a whole room in the Museum of Flight full of the memories of his heroism and his personal things. His statue is placed in the avenue of the heroes.