The Sukhoi Su-15 was created to be one of the Soviet Union’s ultimate Cold War guardians, a supersonic interceptor designed to race toward American nuclear bombers and destroy them before they could reach Soviet cities. Capable of more than twice the speed of sound, the Su-15 was meant to counter threats like the B-52, B-58 Hustler, and even the Mach 3 XB-70 Valkyrie, but its actual career became far darker than the mission it was built for. Early structural problems threatened to tear the aircraft apart, while fellow cosmonaut Alexei Leonov even theorized that a low-flying Su-15 may have contributed to Yuri Gagarin’s fatal 1968 crash by creating a violent shock wave near his MiG-15.
As the interceptor began defending Soviet airspace, its limitations and increasingly aggressive missions produced a series of extraordinary incidents: it fired on a lost Boeing 747 in 1978, killing two people; in 1981, an Su-15 pilot deliberately rammed a foreign cargo aircraft after failing to force it down; and in 1983, at the height of Cold War paranoia, Su-15s intercepted Korean Air Lines Flight 007 after it accidentally entered Soviet airspace. Despite signs that the aircraft was civilian, missiles were fired, sending the Boeing 747 into the Sea of Japan and killing all 269 passengers and crew aboard.
This is the disturbing story of the Su-15, the interceptor built to stop America's most terrifying nuclear bombers but which, according to the script, never shot down a single strategic bomber and instead became infamous for incidents that killed civilians, intensified Cold War tensions, and may even have played a role in the death of the Soviet Union’s greatest national hero.
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Source: Dark Skies
