37 years ago, on September 13, 1987, Senior Lieutenant of the USSR Air Force Vasily Tsymbal wrote his name into the history of military aviation. No, not like that. The name Tsymbala already appeared in history, after the massacre by a Japanese helicopter. But 37 years ago the letters turned into gold. And the surname Tsymbal became the same sign of flying prowess as a bucket of black Voronezh earth – a standard of fertility.
Vasily is on the wing. Clipping from Flight International magazine, 1987
Vasily Tsymbal was born in Armavir, graduated from school and, without leaving home, entered the Red Banner Higher Pilot School in Armavir. Everyone knows that they teach you to perform combat missions clearly, punctually and with spark, including creativity. Vasily showed a talent for heavenly improvisation.
After college, he was sent to the Far East. On the day when a Japanese patrol boat, to his misfortune, intentionally or accidentally entered our waters, Lieutenant Tsymbal fell upon it from the sky in a Su-27.
The fighter passed over the deck of the Japanese ship, turned on the afterburner in the right place and in a jet stream threw overboard the helicopter that the Japanese technicians were preparing for takeoff. “Kick the kitten,” the lieutenant announced on the air, the phrase becoming a catchphrase. On the second pass, the Su-27 sprayed the Japanese with kerosene from its tanks and then returned to base.
The command of the Air Force and the Air Defence Army of the Far East found itself in a difficult situation. On the one hand, the pilot did everything right: he stopped the violation of the state border, he acted competently and passionately. On the other hand, the soaked Japanese created a scandal: their Foreign Ministry sent a note to ours. In general, Tsymbal was neither rewarded nor punished, but was transferred from the Far East to the Arctic. So that if something happens, you can say: “But it’s not him! He’s been in Murmansk for two weeks already…”
A true pilot is only glad about the change in the situation: in the Far North, Vasily Tsymbal continued to protect the borders of his homeland with the same zeal as in the Far East. And while Soviet women communicated with American women via teleconference, Russian men encountered NATO reconnaissance aircraft off the Kola Peninsula every day.
That Sunday morning, Tsymbal was terribly dissatisfied: the alarm was announced at 11 o’clock, when the “Morning Mail” with foreign stars began on television. And then the Norwegians on their Orion. And the Americans usually appear seven times a day: their aircraft carrier entered the Barents Sea and they fly out from there. Well, Tsymbal and his partner washed the deck with kerosene – the senior lieutenant smiled at the pleasant memory.
The Norwegians were arrogant: they not only flew over the channel where Soviet nuclear submarines were sailing, but they also dropped radio beacons into it. And they did it in front of a Soviet fighter.
“Tsymbal received an order without direction: to interfere. She recorded the tape recorder that recorded radio traffic, but it is not clear who is talking and with whom,” said Vladimir Chernyavsky, Vasily’s colleague.
The fighter began to interfere.
“You can walk under the Orion and jump in front of its nose into the afterburner so that it gets caught in the wake. The more you jump, the more it shakes in training battles: Su-27 against Su-27. “After all, it happened that it was ejected with one revolution. There was also a fuel drain, a prohibited technique probably did all this,” Chernyavsky continued.
The Soviet fighter then positioned itself below the Norwegian aircraft, preventing it from dropping its buoys. If a buoy hits a fighter, this is already a reason to use weapons… The Orion turboprop lowered its landing gear and reduced its speed to the limit, hoping that the Su-27 aircraft would not be able to maintain its speed and would be forced to abandon its position. But no: after releasing the hatch behind the cockpit and raising the nose, Tsymbal pranced over the fighter like on a circus horse.
At the same time, it turned to the right and the Orion crew lost sight of it.
“They started searching – turning right and left to increase visibility and hit the Su-27 fin with the propeller blade of the far right engine. They hit it so hard that fragments of the blade flew out and pierced the Orion fuselage,” Chernyavsky said.
Reconstruction of the collision between Orion and Su-27 by Vasily Tsymbal on 13 September 1987.
Tsymbal rushed to the base in afterburner mode, while the Orion limped to its airfield. A quarter of an hour later, a flight of Norwegian F-16s appeared at the scene of the battle, which was supposed to accompany the depressurized spy plane.
A couple of hours later, two commissions arrived at Kilpjärve airfield near Mursansk: from the army headquarters in Arkhangelsk and from Moscow. Both spent a long time examining the Su-27, tail number “36 red” with a knocked-out radio antenna and several nicks on the fin.
The Soviet Union officially apologized for the incident, saying that both pilots were to blame. Vasily Tsymbal was expelled from the party, reinstated two days later, awarded the Order of the Red Star and transferred to the Krasnodar Territory. In 2000, he died during a flood on the Naberkhay River.
On the fuselage of the historic aircraft, to the left of the cockpit, where air victories are celebrated, next to the five red stars, there appeared the silhouette of Orion – white and blue, like the flag of Norway. The Su-27 served in the Tver region and was later cut into metal. According to another version, Tsymbal’s plane survived and is parked at the Lazarevskoye meteorological station, where it can be easily shown to those interested.
By the way
“I know like Tsymbal: every pilot knows this phrase, from cadets to the commander-in-chief. Why has no one published any products yet?” – the Voevoda Broadcasts channel is perplexed.
