red menace

In a similar manner to his leader, Number Two lined his jet up and opened fire, his first burst arcing lazily over the starboard wing. Calming his nerves and his breathing, he fired again after correcting his aim. Letting all of his ammunition go in one long burst, he peppered the silver Boeing with lethal High Explosive shells, cutting hydraulic control lines to the starboard wing flaps. Fluid flowed like blood down the damaged wing and atomised in the airflow into a fine mist. One section of flap came away from the control mounting and moved down its actuator path, jamming on one side. This created drag and turbulence and shook the whole aircraft. Jagged shell holes and damage doomed the Boeing. A section of spoiler from the front leading edge of the wing detached to spin past like confetti. Flames leapt out of a shattered number four engine. Shattered fan blades had punctured fuel lines and more dangerously the main outboard fuel tank. Escaping fuel streamed back and mixed with hydraulic fluid, a Devil’s brew that ignited with a whoomph! Losing height with locked controls and a dead engine and major damage, time was against the Boeing.

“Red Bird Two to Red Bird Lead, I have exhausted my ammunition. Target plane is badly damaged. Over.”

“Red Bird Lead to Red Bird Two. Drop back onto me – we will use heat seeking missiles to finish him. The fire will provide a strong heat signature greater than his engines. Stay by my side and we will fire together from ten kilometres. Standby to manoeuvre now. Out.”

Describing a large circle, both of the silver Sukhoi “Flagon” interceptors came round and positioned themselves ten clicks behind the doomed Boeing. While doing this Tupelov informed Control of current events. At twenty thousand feet Tupelov used his infra red sensor to lock onto the heat, three running engines and a hundred long banner of flame from the right wing tanks, leaking hydraulic fluid, a dead engine and port wing damage on an engine that still ran. Locking his “Spin Scan” radar on made sure he wouldn’t miss or fail. On his radar screen a large box surrounded the blip of the Boeing; a similar one with a cross inside was displayed on the HUD. On the Infra-Red sensor screen a black shape like a knife on edge with a long sausage in the middle showed up. White bits danced and glowed angrily – fire and heat from the damaged and remaining engines. A high pitch noise filled Tupelov’s earphones telling him that his heat seeking AA-6 “Anab” missiles had a solid lock on. Ivan’s followed a moment later. In unison both pilots launched. Under each outer wing panel a heat seeking Infra-Red guided missile left its launch rail on a tail of white fire. Leaving a delicate white smoke trail, four missiles speared through the blue sky to their target covering miles in seconds at Mach 3 plus. In a simultaneous impact and detonation four warheads appeared as one and destroyed the target. There were yellow flashes as four times one hundred and forty pounds of explosives mixed with titanium bits of shrapnel caused carnage. Blown into large bits, taken to pieces by missile power, flaming debris fell earthwards. A cloud of burning fuel fanned out, black smoke boiling upwards. Trails of fiery smoke followed what had once been a large shiny silver airplane, down to a watery grave. No one survived, no one baled out, nothing.

Once again the Soviet Motherland had been protected from foreign airborne intrusion by the enemy by a powerful system of radars and interceptors. If this had been a B-52 with a Hydrogen bomb, a city or more would have been saved. With fuel running low both Soviet interceptors turned for home. One last radio message was sent by a quiet Lead Pilot Tupelov.

“Target is destroyed, repeat target is destroyed by cannon and missile fire. It has blown up and is falling into the ocean. There appears to be no survivors. Permission to return to base. Over.”

“Control to Red Bird Lead, good work,” Control replied. “Permission granted. Return to base. Use runway one-two. Search and rescue planes are scrambling. Please give shoot down location. Out.”

An international incident had occurred, people had died, an airplane shot down. Was it a spy plane or an airliner? Events would move fast now, either to solve this tragic event or lead to World War Three. Time would tell...