‘On popular request’: what’s the story about an Iraqi Mi-24 shooting down an Iranian F-4—and then using an AT-4 or AT-6 anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) to do so?
On Oct. 27, 1982, the Iraqi magazine ‘Baghdad Observer’—a government-controlled publication in Baghdad produced for Western journalists—ran a story headlined “The Day of the Helicopter Gunship.”
This included a short account of an air engagement that was said to have occurred a few days earlier, in which a single ‘Mi-24’ attack helicopter allegedly shot down an ‘Iranian F-4 Phantom.‘ According to the report, the encounter took place ‘north of Eyn-e Khosh area’, and the Phantom was ‘destroyed by a next-generation, long-range AT-6 Spiral ATGM,’ ‘fired by a Mi-24 helicopter specially prepared and brought to Iraq by the Soviets in order to test the AT-6 missile in the air-to-air mode’.
This claim was taken at face value and widely reproduced in various Western outlets throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. It is still circulating in the East European press today. Some Russian writers even went so far as to describe it as ‘verified by Western intelligence sources’.
Actually, this was never true: in fact, the claim was never verified. The most that occurred was that the Baghdad Observer article was reprinted by the Washington-based Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) on page E2 of its Communiqué No. 885, FBIS-MEA-82-209, dated Oct. 28, 1982. Although the CIA originally established FBIS, it was not ‘US intelligence’ but rather a commercial organization that collected material from a wide range of foreign media and broadcasts and then redistributed it to interested parties in the West.
A few notes about terminology:
- ‘AT-4 Spigot’ is the ASCC/NATO codename for the Soviet-made 9K111 Fagot ATGM
- AT-6 Spiral’ is the ASCC/NATO codename for the Soviet-made 9K114 Shturm ATGM
- The Mi-24 is a well-known Soviet attack helicopter (or helicopter gunship). In Soviet service, it was equipped with AT-6s. However, back in the 1970s and 1980s, neither was exported outside Europe.
Instead, most foreign buyers—Iraq among them—received the export version known as the Mi-25. This model was equipped with the much older 9M17 Fleyta (ASCC/NATO codename ‘AT-2 Swatter’) anti-tank guided missiles and 57 mm S-5K unguided rockets, launched from UB-16-57 or UB-32-57 pods. In fact, Iraq never received any AT-6s at all.
Ironically, once it became clear that at least part of this account was fictitious, certain East European sources altered the narrative, asserting that the Mi-24 achieved the kill with unguided rockets or machine-gun fire. Others went so far as to argue that the ‘Iraqi Mi-24’ had been modified to launch AT-4 ATGMs (since AT-4s were indeed supplied to Iraq). Nevertheless, all of these ‘authors’ maintained that the engagement took place on Oct. 27, 1982—the exact date the original report appeared in the Baghdad Observer. In my view, this alone completely undermines the credibility of any such source.
In any case, no Iranian F-4—of any variant—is known to have been written off for any reason on October 27 or during the preceding week. Nor was any such aircraft ever shot down by Mi-24/25 helicopters.
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Photo by Alex Beltyukov and Shahram Sharifi via Wikipedia
