MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

Barron J. MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

CHAPTER I: Into the Unknown

As he had done every day except Sunday during the past four weeks, Lieutenant Viktor Ivanovich Belenko awakened himself early to watch what the dawn might reveal. The first light was promising, and upon seeing the fiery, blinding sun rise, he knew: almost certainly this would be the day. Above the vast forests of pine, cedar, birch, and poplar stretching along the Pacific shores of the Soviet Far East, the sky was azure and cloudless. The magnificent weather meant that barring mistakes, malfunctions, or some other vagary, in all likelihood he would fly as scheduled. Probably he finally could attempt the supreme mission which rain, fuel shortages, or bureaucratic caprice repeatedly had forestalled. If the weather held, his chances of reaching the objective would be as good as he ever could expect.

Belenko estimated it all should be over within the next six hours. At age twenty-nine, he would be either dead or reborn into a new world. He felt tension in the muscles of the arms, legs, and stomach, but the stress derived more from the complexity of the mental tasks ahead than from fear of dying. During his training as a MiG (Named for its designers, Mikoyan and Gurevich) pilot he had lived on the edge of death so long and seen sudden, violent death so often that he had given up contemplating it. He had come to regard it simply as an unfathomable phenomenon to be avoided as long as possible, but not at any price. Neither did he dwell on the infinite uncertainties and unknowns that awaited him should he succeed and survive. He had assessed them as best he could before making his decision, and there was no profit in considering them further now. The awareness that he was looking for the last time at his pretty wife and three-year-old son, both sleeping within his reach near the window, evoked no emotion either. She had adamantly demanded a divorce and had announced her intent to take their child back to her parents in Magadan, some 1,250 miles away. The many failed attempts at reconciliation had sapped all emotion from the marriage, and there was nothing more to say. He was tempted to pick up and hold his son. No! Don't! He might cry. You wouldn't ordinarily pick him up at this hour. Don't do one thing that you wouldn't ordinarily do.

Belenko put on his shirt, trousers, and boots quickly, trying not to awaken his family or the family occupying the other room of the apartment. From between the pages of a tattered Russian-English dictionary he removed a slip of paper on which he had written a three-sentence message succinctly explaining his mission. Preparation of the message the month before and its retention ever since had been dangerous. Yet it was necessary that he deliver a written message instantly if all went well, so he folded the paper into a tight square and buried it in his pocket.

In the small yard outside the frame apartment house reserved for officers, he exercised for fifteen minutes, doing push-ups on soggy ground and chinning himself from the limb of a tree. Then he commenced jogging through the muddy streets of Chuguyevka, a village situated in the taiga 120 miles northeast of Vladivostok, toward the bus stop about a mile away. Running and jumping puddles, Belenko looked like a prototype of the New Communist Man the Party spoke endlessly of creating. He stood just over five feet eight inches and had an athletic physique, with broad, slightly sloping shoulders powerfully developed by years of boxing, arm wrestling, and calisthenics. A Soviet television program once pictured him — yellow hair, fair complexion, and large blue eyes widely set in a handsome, boyish face — as the very model of a young pilot. Women, particularly older women, were beguiled by his smile, which they found simultaneously shy and rakish.

At about seven that morning, September 6, 1976, Belenko arrived in a decrepit bus, built before World War II, at the headquarters compound of the 513th Fighter Regiment of the Soviet Air Defense Command. Outside the smallest of the red-and-white-brick buildings he hesitated. No, you have to eat. You would be missed. Besides, you will need the strength. Go on!

In the officers' mess, fresh white cloths covered the tables, each set for four pilots, and still-life paintings of fruit and vegetables adorned the walls. The waitresses, girls in the late teens or early twenties, all employed because they were pretty, enhanced the ambience. A physician was tasting the breakfast of goulash, rice, fruit compote, white bread, buttermilk, and tea to make sure it was fit for fliers. After he approved the food, everyone sat down in white plastic chairs and began.