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On 6 September 1976, an aircraft appears out of the clouds near the Japanese city of Hakodate, on the northern island of Hokkaido. The huge, grey hulk sports the red stars of the Soviet Union. No-one in the West has ever seen one before.
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The jet lands on Hakodateโs concrete-and-asphalt runway. The runway, it turns out, is not long enough. The jet ploughs through hundreds of feet of earth before it finally comes to rest at the far end of the airport.
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The pilot climbs out of the planeโs cockpit and fires two warning shots from his pistol โ motorists on the road next to the airport have been taking pictures of this strange sight. It is some minutes before airport officials, driving from the terminal, reach him. It is then that the 29-year-old pilot, Flight Lieutenant Viktor Ivanovich Belenko of the Soviet Air Defence Forces, announces that he wishes to defect.
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It is no normal defection. Belenko has not wandered into an embassy, or jumped ship while visiting a foreign port. The plane that he has flown 400-odd miles, and which now sits stranded at the end of a provincial Japanese runway, is the MiG-25. It is the most secretive aircraft the Soviet Union has ever built - Until Belenkoโs landing, that is.
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The Foxbat is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that was among the fastest (Mach 2.83) military aircraft to enter service. It was designed by the Soviet Union's Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau and is one of the few combat aircraft built primarily using stainless steel. It was the last plane designed by Gurevich before his retirement. The appearance of the MiG-25 sparked serious concern in the West and prompted dramatic increases in performance for the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle then under development in the late 1960s.
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Text-Source: Wikipedia / bbc.com