Sembach Air Base - The Serious Stuff

MIG 29 at the 1989 Paris Air Show

From a duty point of view, namely the SOC3 being responsible for air defense of one of the four sectors over (West) German airspace, things were very interesting in 1989 and 1990. NATO's military leadership was more relaxed with respect to the Warsaw Pact, and permission was granted for Soviet aircraft to fly over NATO airspace to participate at the 1989 Paris Air Show. The Soviets were to display their newest flagship fighter aircraft, the MIG-29, and for the first time in the West, their newest interceptor SU-27, and they were given coordinates for flight corridors to fly from their East German bases to land at Le Bourget airport. Once the aircraft entered NATO airspace it vanished from the radar screens. Minutes later we got a call from Bitburg airbase, where a MIG-29 was seen overflying the base at low altitude. F16s were scrambled to intercept the rogue Russian, and once the 36th TFW aircraft caught up with them the were escorted to their actual destination in France. The MIG-29 never made it back though, as it spectacularly (and for the Russians embarrassingly) crashed, with the pilot ejecting seconds before impact. 

The hijacked Hungarian Airlines B727
being escorted by USAF Security Police at
Rhein-Main International Airport in Frankfurt

Earlier that year, there was another incident in our sector, when two Czech youths hijacked a Hungarian Airlines flight at Prague International Airport and forced it to fly to Frankfurt. Airliners can identify themselves as being hijacked by sending out a specific squawk or transponder code, which would then trigger an alert on our radar screens. However, since the 15 and 16 year old boys took control of the aircraft at the airport, it was already known to pretty much everyone that a plane was in trouble. When an aircraft is hijacked, airspace around their flight path is immediately closed to civilian air traffic, and the military assumes control of air traffic and space. When we learned that it was two teenagers trying to flee the East, although armed and considered dangerous, we kind of cheered them on and all clapped, when they landed safely in Frankfurt later that morning. No one was harmed, and the boys asked to stay in West Germany when they peacefully surrendered to the authorities.

The Berlin Corridors as displayed at ATC Tempelhof radar

The border between East and West along our sector, that we had to guard so closely for decades, making sure that no aircraft approach let alone enter the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), a belt to the west and east of the East/West border 15 miles wide each side, became more and more insignificant. Civilian aircraft traveling to West Berlin had to follow three narrow air corridors where flight path, air speed and altitude were strictly enforced by the Soviets. Any aircraft approaching the West outside those corridors, or violating the ADIZ and entering NATO airspace without a filed flight plan were intercepted by two of the fighter jets stationed at the U.S. airbases across the sector, mainly Bitburg and Spangdahlem. Those interceptions, or scrambles, were triggered at the SOC. 

The military service for members of the German Armed Forces up until 1991 was usually very boring, as German military was not authorized to conduct any military operations other than to defend the German homeland in case of an outside attack. Therefore the military routines were normally very boring, and theoretical. Not so for the Air Force, and especially not so for us at the SOC. We were witnessing real military action every single day. Military confrontations between NATO and Warsaw Pact aircraft happened on a regular basis, and even though, nothing serious ever happened, our attitude down in the bunker was being concentrated and vigilant at all times. And we didn't trust anyone. 

One day, a track on the radar approached the ADIZ from the East, and continued approaching West German airspace. There was no valid transponder code, no flight plan, nothing. Two jets were scrambled to intercept. Turned out it was a old guy who had flown from Sylt south a few days earlier, ended up getting lost in poor weather (no GPS back then) and ended up in East German airspace, where he was intercepted, forced to land, and interrogated for days, before being released, probably after a hefty amount of tax money was paid to the East Germans, and just sent on his way to fly home. I believe the old fellow ended up having to pay for the cost of the scramble, which was about $130,000 at the time.