Viktor Belenko, who defected to the West in a fighter jet, dies at the age of 76

On a clear late summer day in 1976, a plane appeared on radar just off the coast of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It flew only 100 feet above the water, low enough to avoid detection. Now it suddenly climbed to 20,000 feet. It was clear that the pilot wanted to be seen.

The plane flew towards the southwestern port city of Hakodate. It flew around the airport twice and then prepared to land. The plane, now recognizable as a Soviet fighter jet, nearly collided with a 727 airliner upon landing. He plowed past the end of the asphalt, blew out his front wheel and came to a stop not far from a busy highway.

As the ground crew rushed over, the plane’s canopy opened. A burly blond man emerged with a gun and fired two shots into the air to alert onlookers. When authorities arrived, he climbed down to meet them.

His name was Lieutenant Viktor Belenko. He was there to walk over, he said, along with his jet, a supersonic interceptor called the MiG-25. The plane had sparked fear among Western militaries for years. Thanks to Lieutenant Belenko, they now had a pristine specimen to examine. George Bush, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, called the incident an “intelligence bonanza.”

Lieutenant Belenko, who later settled in the United States, died on September 24 at a senior center near Rosebud, a small town in southern Illinois. He was 76. His son Paul Schmidt said his death, which was not widely reported at the time, came after a brief illness.

Viktor Belenko was the flower of communist youth. Born into proletarian poverty, he had risen through the career and party ranks to become a member of the country’s elite Air Defense Forces, a separate branch of the Soviet Air Force charged with defending the motherland from attack.

But he gradually became disillusioned with the Soviet system. He had been promised material rewards for his hard work; instead, despite his elite status, he felt like he was being treated like an expendable cog in a creaking war machine.

He kept his doubts to himself – so much so that in the early 1970s he was given the choicest assignment: training on the MiG-25, one of the Soviets’ newest weapons.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had engaged in a high-altitude arms race, building bigger, faster bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. The United States had the upper hand, given the vastness of the territory the Soviets had to defend.

Then, in the early 1970s, American intelligence services and their allies discovered a new aircraft in the Soviet arsenal: a huge fighter, capable of flying miles above the Earth, several times the speed of sound.

The aircraft, which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization dubbed the MiG-25 “Foxbat,” had something else: wide wings, which indicated it was also highly maneuverable. This was the weapon the West had long feared, believing it could shoot down supersonic bombers and reconnaissance aircraft that had until then flown through Soviet airspace with impunity.

Now Lieutenant Belenko would give them one as a gift.

He had been plotting his escape for months, waiting for him and his squadron to go on an unarmed training mission over the Sea of ​​Japan, bringing him close to freedom and leaving his colleagues unable to stop him.

After he landed, Japanese officials handed over Lieutenant Belenko and his plane to the Americans. The aircraft was dissected and analyzed before being returned to the Soviets in pieces a few weeks later. Lieutenant Belenko was granted asylum and then flew to the United States for an interview.

The MiG-25 turned out to be a paper eagle. The massive wingspan was not intended for maneuverability, but simply to lift the plane and its 15 tons of fuel off the ground. It couldn’t even do its job: although it flew fast, it was no match for the American plane it was supposed to shoot down.

Of great value, however, was what Lieutenant Belenko told the Americans about conditions and morale within the Soviet armed forces.

American officials had long believed that Soviet soldiers were sculpted supermen. Lieutenant Belenko revealed that they were often half-starved and beaten down, forced into cramped living quarters and subjected to sadistic punishment for the slightest infraction.

During a visit to an American aircraft carrier, he was surprised that sailors were allowed free and unlimited food. He once bought a can of cat food at the supermarket, not knowing it was for pets; when someone pointed out his mistake, he shrugged and said it still tasted better than the food sold for human consumption in the Soviet Union.

And he was amazed to learn about the flaws in his plane’s inner workings, which, despite his elite status, he had never been allowed to see.

“If my regiment could see five minutes of what I saw today,” he told a companion, “a revolution would break out.”

Viktor Ivanovich Belenko was born on February 15, 1947 in Nalchik, a Russian city at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains.

His father worked in a factory, his mother on a farm. Even by Soviet standards, they had very little money. But Viktor devoted himself to his studies and his activities in the Communist Party and became a member of the Young Pioneers, a youth group that trained future party members.

He had little idea of ​​life in America, except that it had to be better than what he encountered in the Soviet Union.

“I long for freedom in the United States,” Japanese police quoted him as saying. “Life in the Soviet Union has not changed from life in Tsarist Russia, where there was no freedom.”

Congress passed a 1980 law to give Mr Belenko citizenship. Eager to escape attention, he adopted the surname Schmidt and moved often, usually to small towns in the Midwest. He worked as a consultant for aerospace companies and government agencies.

His marriage to Coral Garaas ended in divorce. Along with his son Paul Schmidt, Mr. Belenko is survived by another son, Tom Schmidt, and four grandchildren. Although some reports claimed he had left a wife and child behind in the Soviet Union, Mr. Belenko told his son that this was untrue and the result of Soviet propaganda.

After the Cold War ended, he began appearing occasionally at air shows and calling himself Viktor Belenko again. But he never tried to capitalize on his moment of international fame.

“He lived a very private life,” said his son Paul. “He literally and figuratively flew under the radar.”