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On 6 September 1976, Soviet Air Force Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected to the West in a MiG-25 interceptor, landing at a civilian airport in Japan and handing American intelligence the most secret aircraft in the Soviet arsenal.

The MiG-25 was studied for 67 days before being returned to the Soviet Union in pieces. What the West found overturned a decade of assumptions about Soviet air power.

This is the story of how Belenko did it, what the analysis revealed, and what became of the man who pulled it off.

📚 Sources & Further Reading (affiliate link):

📕 MiG Pilot by John Barron