1989 Belgium MiG-23 crash

On 4 July 1989, a pilotless MiG-23 jet fighter of the Soviet Air Forces crashed into a house in Bellegem, near Kortrijk, Belgium, killing one person. The pilot had ejected over an hour earlier near Kołobrzeg, Poland, after experiencing technical problems, but the aircraft continued flying for around 900 km before running out of fuel and crashing into the ground.

History of the flight
The incident started as a routine training flight. Colonel Nikolai Skuridin, the pilot, was to fly a MiG-23M from the Bagicz Airbase near Kołobrzeg, Poland. During takeoff, the engine's afterburner failed, causing a partial loss of power. At an altitude of 150 m and descending, the pilot elected to abandon the aircraft and ejected safely. However, the engine kept running and the aircraft remained airborne, flying on autopilot in a westerly direction.

The unmanned aircraft left Polish airspace, crossing into East Germany and then West Germany, where it was intercepted by a pair of F-15s from the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron of the United States Air Forces Europe, stationed at Soesterberg Air Base in the Netherlands. The F-15 pilots reported that the MiG had no crew. At that stage the aircraft was potentially heading towards the United Kingdom's territorial airspace, so a live armed Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) RAF Phantom of 56(F) Squadron was scrambled from RAF Wattisham in Suffolk and instructed to fly at maximum subsonic speed to the Kent coast and be prepared to shoot the MiG down if it crossed the English Channel.

The MiG-23 crossed into Dutch airspace and continued into Belgium. The escorting F-15s were instructed to shoot down the plane over the North Sea, but as the MiG ran out of fuel, it started a slow turn to the south, prompting the French Air Force to put its fighters on alert. After flying over 900 km, the MiG eventually crashed into the house at 273 Doorniksesteenweg, in the town of Bellegem, near Kortrijk, some 5-10 km from the French border, killing local teenage resident Wim Delaere.

Delaere, an informatics student reported to have been either 18 or 19 years old, was reportedly sleeping at the house alone after celebrating the end of his university exams the previous day when the MiG crashed and killed him at 10:30 am. His mother and brother were shopping for groceries in Kortrijk, and his father was working in Ypres.

Political aftermath
The Belgian government made a formal protest to the Soviet Union for the lack of notification about the stray aircraft. The Belgian Foreign Minister Mark Eyskens expressed concern that "from the time the MiG-23 was first picked up on NATO radar to the time it crashed more than an hour later, no word of warning came from the Soviet side," and that "there was also a 'notable slowness' on the part of the Soviets in disclosing whether the jet was carrying nuclear or toxic weapons."