In the late 1950s, a young Yugoslavian man named Michael was chosen out of some 600 budding pilots to undertake fighter training in the Yugoslav Air Force. He was training to become one of their 'top gun' pilots. Before graduating to flying jets (MIGs at the time, Yugoslavia was a Communist country allied with Russia) he and his classmates trained flying Russian-built YAK9s...then, one of the most advanced propeller driven planes in the world.
In mid 1959 he decided to defect to the West because he no longer agreed with the governmental policies and direction at that time. The way he chose to do it was to 'borrow' a YAK9 and fly it across the Adriatic Sea to Italy. He didn't know where he could land it because there was no information on airports or air bases in Italy available to him in Yugoslavia...he just hoped there would be something somewhere.
One morning in June he began his training like every other day, suiting up and walking to his YAK9. His routine was to take off and carry out aerobatics (an important requirement in his training), and his flight plan was given clearance by the authorities at his base. This day was to have a different conclusion from the flight plan he submitted. He took nothing with him, photos, wallet, money...nothing. Had anyone seen him take anything other than his flying suit they would have become suspicious and possibly grounded him. He told no one about what he was planning to do...not even his mother.
After taking off, he headed to the location where his aerobatic practise had been approved and began to roll and loop, etc. All the time he kept his eyes out for the MIGs of the Yugoslav Air Force that patrolled the coastline every day. At one point when the MIGs had crossed and were heading out of sight he full-throttled his YAK 9 and dived to 20 feet above the ground to avoid radar detection and headed towards the coast, the Adriatic and, hopefully, Italy. He knew Yugoslav ground controllers would not be suspicious by this manoeuvre as it was all part of his aerobatic practice routine. By the time he crossed the coastline he was travelling at 400 kms per hour. Once over the sea, he set his flaps in a way that if anything went wrong his plane would automatically go up instead of down. He fought with his plane for the full 29 minutes it took to reach Italy pushing the throttle forward to keep it down low while every part of the plane was trying to go up.
Throughout the flight he was unsure if one of the MIG jets was on his tail and about to shoot him out of the sky, or whether Yugoslav radar had spotted him and a missile was on its way. Furthermore, he didn't know if the Italians would try to shoot him down as he approached and crossed their coastline. All the while he knew that if he lost concentration for a split second he might hit the sea at 400 kms per hour.
Finally, he spotted the Italian coastline and moved higher into the air to see if he could find somewhere to land. He knew by the terrain that there was a probability of landing strips in certain areas so headed there first. Thankfully he spotted what turned out to be an US Air Force Base and landed on their strip.
One can imagine the surprise of the Americans to find a Communist plane landing unannounced in broad daylight. Michael's plane was immediately surrounded by US Military personnel carrying machine guns and he was detained for questioning. One of Michael's concerns was that he had stolen a Yugoslav plane and pleaded with the Americans to return the plane to Yugoslavia, which they did.
After being given political asylum, he later married and moved to Australia where he worked as a builder for many years.
Due to the nature of his actions, the Yugoslav authorities told his mother that Michael had a training accident and had flown into the side of a cliff. For many years his mother thought her son was dead. Later he was able to get word to her that he was alive and living in Australia. 20 years after the incident, because of the changes in the political climate in Yugoslavia, his elderly mother was granted a visa and moved to Bright, Victoria, where she and her son now peacefully reside.
