1978 Iranian Chinook shootdown The 1978 Iranian Chinook shootdown was an incident on June 21 , 1978 , when four Boeing CH - 47 Chinook of the Imperial Iranian Air Force strayed into Soviet airspace during a training mission , with the end result being that two of the aircraft were shot down by the PVO . Shootdown . During the 1970s numerous incidents , probably including Project Dark Gene occurred on the Soviet - Iranian and Afghan - Iranian border , forcing the Soviets to station a regiment of MiG - 23 s at the Ak - Tepe AB , near the border with Afghanistan , in what was then the Turkestan Military District . One of the most serious of these occurred in the early morning of 21 June 1978 , at 06 : 21 AM , when a Soviet radar site near the village of Bagir , not far from Ashkabad , detected four slow moving contacts which came from Iran and penetrated 15 to 20 kilometers into the Soviet airspace near Dushak , in Turkmenistan . Five minutes later , these targets were detected by the radar site of Ak - Tepe Air Base , and deputy commander of the 152 IAP , Lt . Col . J . A . Miloslavsky , ordered one MiG - 23M , flown by Capt . A . V . Dem ’ janov , to scramble . Once over the area , Dem ’ janov found only one helicopter , but misidentified it as a friendly Mil Mi - 6 . In addition , he got a command from the command post , " not to turn weapons on and not to come too close to the target " . Because Dem ’ janov ’ s answers to calls from the GCI station sounded uncertain , he was finally ordered back to Ak - Tepe AB and instead , at 06 : 52 AM , Lt . Col . Miloslavsky dispatched another MiG - 23M , flown by Capt . Valery I . Shkinder . Shkinder approached four contacts , identified them properly as Boeing CH - 47 Chinook helicopters of the Imperial Iranian Air Force and got an order to attack . At the time , the Iranian Chinooks were flying in two pairs to the northwest along the Qaraqum Canal , but when their crews detected the interceptor over them , they made a turn to the southwest and flew towards the Kopet mountains and the Iranian border . Diving behind the two rear Chinooks , Capt . Shkinder fired two Molniya R - 60 IR - homing air - to - air missiles . Both missiles found their mark and struck the rearmost helicopter , the wreckage of which crashed near the village of Gjaurs , killing all eight crew members . Capt . Shkinder informed his base of the destruction of the first target and announced his attack on the second helicopter . Turning around , he positioned his MiG - 23M behind the damaged helicopter and opened fire with GSh - 23 L 23 - mm - guns , spending a total of 72 rounds in two passes and hitting the starboard engine of the CH - 47C . The Iranian pilot was lucky enough to manage a landing near the Soviet border post at Gjaurs . All four crew members survived , but were subsequently captured by Soviet border guards . The remaining two Chinooks escaped , crossing back into Iranian airspace . Aftermath . Despite a severe loss of life for the IIAF , the incident was played down by both sides , and the Soviets subsequently permitted the damaged Chinook to be repaired by Iranians and flown back to Iran , together with all four crewmembers : Capt . Valery Shkinder was also not decorated for his feat , with the proposal for him getting a Combat Red Flag Award with Kremlin rejecting the proposal " due to a very complex international situation " . Ten years later in 1988 in a similar incident , two Soviet MiG - 23 s shot down a pair of Iranian AH - 1J s that had strayed into western Afghan airspace . The Soviets were occupying Afghanistan at the time .