Shortly after taking a smooth right turn, the two MiG-23MLs from No. 63 Squadron rolled out barely 8nm behind the F-14A, meanwhile underway well inside the Iraqi airspace…
While many Iraqi sources claim that the Iranian F-14A was not especially effective and achieved little during the Iran–Iraq War, a careful review of the available evidence shows that Grumman’s powerful interceptor still posed a significant threat. It is therefore no surprise that, as early as the Battle of Faw, the Iraqi Air Force (IrAF), working with the Baghdad government, launched a multi-pronged campaign to limit the operations of the Iranian Tomcats.
In addition to procuring Remora ECM pods from France, the Iraqi Air Force sought more advanced RWR/RHAW systems from both France and the Soviet Union. During a meeting with diplomats from Arab states in the lower Persian Gulf, Saddam Hussein further claimed that several Iranian F-14 pilots were preparing to defect to Iraq. As Tom Cooper tells in his book MiG-23 Flogger in the Middle East: Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-23 in service in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, 1973–2018, Iran’s intelligence services were strongly represented in countries such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, so Tehran quickly learned of this declaration and repeatedly grounded many of its Tomcat pilots over the course of that year.
There was actually some truth behind this claim, as Iraqi military intelligence had been attempting since 1982 to contact various Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) pilots and persuade them to defect. This effort relied on telephone calls routed through Turkey, during which the Iraqis spoke to selected pilots in English. Their first success came on August 27, 1984, when Major Rahman Ghanat Pishnee defected with an F-4E from TFB.6 (Bushehr) to Ali Ibn Abu Talib Air Base. The Phantom II was thoroughly examined but never flown; it was later stored in a hangar, where it was destroyed by U.S. bombs in January 1991.
Encouraged by their earlier success, Iraqi Military Intelligence persisted and eventually made contact with Captain Ahmed Moradin Talebi, an F-14 pilot stationed at TFB.8 (Esfahan). In spring 1986, Moradin requested approval for a family vacation abroad, which was granted, and he traveled with his wife to Germany that August. He returned later that month without his wife yet, surprisingly, was still allowed to remain in service. Unbeknownst to Iranian counterintelligence, he had already established contact with the Iraqis, and his defection was scheduled for September 33, 1986. To ensure he would be identified as a defector, Moradi was instructed to fly his Tomcat along a precisely defined route, at a designated speed and altitude.
The Iran–Iraq War took place in extremely harsh weather conditions. In summer, temperatures often climbed above 48°C (120°F), forcing both sides to scale back operations from late morning through late afternoon. As a result, no flights occurred between 11:00 and 16:00. In the evenings, however, Iraqi forces frequently mounted air attacks on tankers carrying Iranian oil from Khark Island.
So, at about 15:30 each afternoon, a pair of F-14s would take off from Esfahan to conduct a combat air patrol near Bushehr. On 2 September 1986, Talebi was among the pilots chosen for the afternoon mission. After two Tomcats had to abort before takeoff, he departed in a third jet, equipped only with Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles. Once in the air, Moradi refueled from a tanker and then turned west, heading toward Iraq.
The officer assigned the responsibility to receive Moradi’s defection was Ahmad Sadik. He was present at the ADOC but didn’t expect the Iranian to defect on Sep. 2, 1986. He recalled the drama that unfolded that afternoon:
“I entered the main hall and took a look at the huge screen in its center. There I could see the track of an Iranian aircraft moving west from Esfahan, approaching the Iraqi border via Khoramabad, and then turning southwest toward al-Kut. The officer on duty scrambled a pair of MiG-23MLs from al-Bakr AB, and the Kari system promptly calculated their interception point near the town of Numanya, well inside Iraq.”
Soon after executing a gentle right turn, two MiG-23MLs from No. 63 Squadron emerged less than 15 kilometers (8 nm) behind the F-14A, which by then was well inside Iraqi airspace. The Iraqi leader’s radar failed, forcing him to instruct his wingman to take over. The younger pilot locked onto the target and launched a single R-24T, which exploded beneath the F-14A, igniting it and compelling the crew to eject. At this point, both MiGs were critically low on fuel and only moved in close enough to visually identify and report the aircraft type before breaking away. Only then did Sadik grasp what had happened: the Iraqis had just squandered an excellent chance to capture an intact F-14A Tomcat. As expected, the Iranian crew was taken prisoner and thoroughly interrogated; Moradi had even brought along a flight manual. Yet almost everything he revealed was already familiar to Iraqi intelligence. Moreover, the F-14A was completely destroyed in the crash, as Sadik later recalled after examining the wreckage the following day.
“To my great disappointment, the front part of the aircraft was completely destroyed. There was not a single piece of the radar or cockpit to recover. The only weapon we could find was the M61A1 Vulcan cannon. It was completely ruined, badly twisted, and burned. The two engines were relatively complete, but both were old and of no intelligence value for us. Eventually, we learned nothing from the wreckage, except that some parts of the airframes wore US serial numbers, and others were of unidentifiable origin.”
This was how the attempted defection of an Iranian F-14 pilot to Iraq came to an end. Because it was carried out a day earlier than arranged with the Iraqis, the plan failed when the Tomcat was mistakenly shot down by two MiG-23MLs.
Photo by Israeli Air Force and Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force
