How our Su-27 fighters "sunk" the US aircraft carrier

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The story is widely known in narrow circles, but nevertheless, I will remind you. By the way, the pilots of our 22nd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment at Uglovka took part in this story.

In the fall of 2000, a meeting of American carrier-based aircraft with fighters of the Russian Air Force, which was "as close as possible" to a combat one, nevertheless took place.

To begin with, one should give the floor to an American pilot, a direct eyewitness to the events described (the text of his letter sent by e-mail from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, against the will of the author of the message, became public).

“… The sailing was quite easy and interesting: 54 days at sea, 4 in port and 45 hours of flight in October alone! (for comparison - many pilots of the Russian Air Force have an annual flight time of about 45-60 hours with the required 200-250 hours) Yeah, we flew our asses off! Since becoming one of the squadron commanders, I have flown a lot. Here's an interesting story (and it's not bullshit).

So, I sit there and chat about all sorts of garbage with my deputy, and we hear a call from the CIC (military information center - the "brain" of the ship) on the TV.

“They say," Sir, we spotted Russian planes."

The captain replies: "Raise the alarm, raise the fighters." From the center they say: you can only announce "Alarm-30" (departure in 30 minutes (!) From the moment of announcement). The captain swore and said: "Get everything into the air as soon as possible!" I ran to the navigator's phone and contacted the squadron duty officer. Our squadron was not on duty that day, so I told him to find out who was on duty and have them get their asses up and rush to the flight deck (only Alarm 7 assumes that you are already on the flight deck and ready to go up into the air: "Alarm-30" means that you are still sitting in the waiting room).

Soon, the Russian Su-27 and Su-24 at a speed of 500 knots passed directly over the bridge of the Kitty Hawk. Just like in Top Gun! The officers on the bridge spilled their coffee and said …! (An obscene expression that has a very emotional Russian counterpart.) At that moment I looked at the captain - his face was purple.

The Russian fighters made two more tight turns at low altitude before we finally launched our first aircraft from deck. It was … EA-6B Prowler (electronic warfare aircraft). Yes, yes, we launched the hapless Prowler one-on-one against the fighter just above the ship.

Our pilots already asked for help when finally the F / A-18 from the "sister" squadron (I use this term literally, since they looked like a company of "women of easy virtue" (the phrase in quotes has been replaced by a more decent one - administration note) flirting with the Russians) took off to intercept. But it was too late. The whole team lifted their heads and watched as the Russians made a laughingstock of our wretched attempt to stop them.

The funny thing is that the admiral and the commander of the aircraft carrier formation were in the command room for the morning meeting, which was interrupted by the hum of the turbines of Russian aircraft circling over the aircraft carrier's wheelhouse. The commander's headquarters officer told me that they looked at each other, at the flight plan, made sure that the launch was scheduled only in a few hours on that day, and asked: "What was that?"

Four days later, Russian intelligence sent an e-mail to the Kitty Hawk commander of photographs of our pilots rushing about the deck, desperately trying to get the planes into the air ….

The events described in the letter took place in the Korea Strait region on October 17, 2000. Two Su-24MR reconnaissance aircraft and a su-27 interceptor fighter-interceptor unit from the 11th Air Force and Air Defense Army took part in the overflight of the American multipurpose aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. According to the then Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force Anatoly Karnukov, "it was planned reconnaissance, during which, however, unusual tasks were solved." At the same time, no international agreements were violated by the Russian side.

It should be noted that the American naval maneuvers took place only 300 km from the Russian coast, which in itself could not be regarded as a friendly act towards our country. Therefore, the actions of the Russian aviation were completely justified and legitimate.

According to the Commander-in-Chief, the intelligence results "were impressive." Su-24MR made several approaches to the aircraft carrier, photographing everything that happens on the flight deck. The pictures showed panic on board the ship: the sailors began to urgently cut the hoses connecting the aircraft carrier with the tanker, which was transferring fuel to the Kitty Hawk at that time.

F / A-18 fighters managed to be lifted into the air only after the second call of Russian reconnaissance, but the Su-27s were immediately taken away from the ship by a diversion, which allowed the reconnaissance aircraft to perform several more flights over a completely defenseless aircraft carrier. According to press reports, the Russian overflight of the Kitty Hawk was repeated on 9 November and was also successful.

This is how the media described these events:

1) On December 7, in Washington, US military officials Kenent Bacon and Admiral Stephen Pietropaoli held a press conference at which they revealed some details of a series of incidents in the Sea of Japan, when Russian Su-27 and Su-24 reconnaissance aircraft flew to a critical distance to the American aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk based there.

Some time later, Bacon said on Thursday, an e-mail was sent to the aircraft carrier containing two photographs of the Kitty Hawk deck taken from Russian aircraft during one of these actions by the Russian Air Force. The letter also contained a short message in Russian, the content of which Admiral Pietropaoli refused to clarify, UPI reports. According to him, the letter was not sent from the Russian Ministry of Defense, and the sender of it to the Pentagon representative is unknown.

In addition, Kenneth Bacon said that at a press conference a week ago, when he also spoke about the actions of the Russian pilots, he made a number of inaccuracies. Firstly, there were not two cases of overflight of Russian aircraft, but three - on October 12, October 17 and November 9. Secondly, during the October 17 incident, the aircraft were not “detected at an acceptable distance” a few hundred meters from the ship, as previously reported by the Russian Air Force, but flew directly over the aircraft carrier, causing the US military to be confused. At this moment, the pictures were taken, which were subsequently sent to Kitty Hawk.

Lenta.ru dated 08.12.2000

2) Russian warplanes in the Sea of Japan successfully carried out an operation to overcome the air defenses of the American multipurpose aircraft carrier strike group led by the Kitty Hawk CV63 aircraft carrier. Information about this, published by the Izvestia newspaper, was confirmed to Interfax on Tuesday by informed sources in the Russian military department. According to them, this happened twice in the Sea of Japan at a time when the US aircraft carrier group was heading for exercises in the Korea Strait (October 17) and when it was returning from maneuvers (November 9) … (Interfax November 14, 2000)

According to some reports, the planes were from the 11th Air Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Anatoly Nogovitsyn). Kitty Hawk's deck was completely unprepared for resistance and the Americans seriously decided that they were being attacked, and began to cut off fuel lines in panic so that there would be no big explosion and fire during the attack. Then they raised the Hornets and tried to accompany the Sushki to the coast.

On the same day, Anatoly Kornukov said that “The leadership of the General Staff of the Armed Forces highly appreciated the work of the Russian pilots, who opened the air defense system of the US aircraft carrier strike force led by the Kitte Hawk aircraft carrier. According to him, all pilots will be nominated for awards. “It was planned reconnaissance, although unusual tasks were solved in the course of it. The results of this reconnaissance are impressive,”the commander-in-chief stressed.

Pedivicia about the incident:

On October 17, 2000, two Su-24 and Su-27 combat aircraft from the 11th Army of the Russian Air Force and Air Defense discovered the Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier and flew in close proximity to it, at an altitude of about 60 m. stocks on the move in the northern Sea of Japan, between Hokkaido and the mainland coast of Russia. After the overflight, the Russian pilots sent the captured images to the aircraft carrier's website. Overflights were repeated on October 20 and November 9

A month later, representatives of the US Department of Defense officially recognized the fact of overflying the aircraft carrier. Russian media prefer the term “conditional destruction”.