1964 T - 39 shootdown incident The 1964 T - 39 shootdown incident occurred on 28 January 1964 , when an unarmed United States Air Force T - 39 Sabreliner on a training mission was shot down over Erfurt , East Germany by a Soviet Mikoyan - Gurevich MiG - 19 fighter aircraft . The occupants of the aircraft were Lieutenant Colonel Gerald K . Hannaford , Captain Donald Grant Millard and Captain John F . Lorraine . All three died , becoming some of the few direct casualties of the Cold War . Background . Following the cessation of hostilities at the end of World War II , a situation which came to be known as the Cold War developed between the United States , Canada , Western European nations , and the Soviet bloc . Tensions between the United States and Soviet Union were most felt in the regions bordering the Iron Curtain , notably West Germany and East Germany and during this time relations between the two superpowers were characterised by hostile attitudes , spying , and numerous incidents resulting in loss of life and equipment . One of the most famous of these is the shooting down of a Lockheed U - 2 spy plane , piloted by Francis Gary Powers , over the Soviet Union in May 1960 . Event . On 28 January 1964 , an unarmed USAF CT - 39A - 1 - NO Sabreliner twin engine jet trainer , " 62 - 4448 " , c / n 276 - 1 , the first Air Force T - 39 , of the 7101st Air Base Wing , departed Wiesbaden , West Germany , at 14 : 10 on a routine three - hour training flight . On board the trainer were three men , Captain John F . Lorraine and students Lieutenant Colonel Gerald K . Hannaford and Captain Donald G . Millard . Lorraine was the qualified instructor , while Hannaford and Millard , both pilots with experience on other types , were being trained in order to qualify on the T - 39 . The flight proceeded uneventfully until , 47 minutes after takeoff , radar at two U . S . air defense stations noticed a fast - moving blip speeding toward East Germany at 500 mph . Hoping to divert the plane from its misdirected flight , each station began hailing the plane on Air Force frequencies and a Russian - monitored international distress band . Repeated calls to the T - 39 went unanswered . It appeared that the T - 39 ' s radio systems malfunctioned and the crew were unable to respond . The T - 39 crossed the border into East Germany . Within five minutes , two blips appeared near the American jet . For 11 minutes , radar blips indicated the three planes were moving eastward , then two blips suddenly veered west and one blip disappeared . American personnel monitoring the T - 39 ' s flight could not determine what had happened , although it was later reported that residents in Vogelsberg , from the border , had heard machine - gun and cannon fire and had witnessed the plane crash . The incident is believed to have occurred at 15 : 14 hours . At 17 : 00 hours on 28 January the United States Military Liaison Mission ( USMLM ) , in Berlin , received a warning to stand by for possible search and rescue of American airmen . By 18 : 00 hours , a search team left Berlin for the Erfurt area of East Germany . At 19 : 15 hours , the chief of the USMLM met with his Soviet counterpart to request help in finding the plane and rescuing survivors ( per the Huebner – Malinin Agreement ) . At 20 : 00 hours , a second search team left Berlin . About this same time , the first team arrived at the crash site , north of Erfurt . The first team received a report from an East German civilian that a U . S . plane had crashed , burned , and the crew was dead . Throughout the night , the American teams tried to approach the aircraft and were repeatedly sent away by the armed Soviet forces on site . These forces denied that any aircraft had crashed , and two American search teams were detained briefly before being released at 14 : 00 hours on 29 January . Aftermath . By 29 January , the United States State Department charged that the Soviet Union shot down an unarmed plane and caused the needless deaths of three officers . Secretary of State Dean Rusk called the action a " shocking and senseless act . " Through the Soviet press agency , Tass , Moscow claimed that the plane had intruded over East German territory and failed to react to signals , and then a warning shot . The Soviets said they were compelled to take the measure that brought down the U . S . plane . On 30 January , the Soviets agreed to allow US personnel access to the crash site . This occurred the following day and later the bodies of all three servicemen were returned to the United States through Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland . General Curtis E . LeMay met the plane and participated in an honors ceremony . The aircraft wreckage was also recovered and was taken back to Berlin , arriving there on 1 February 1964 . Memorial . Residents from the nearby town of Vogelsberg in Thuringia erected a memorial to the three downed pilots , once the " Iron Curtain " was lifted .