Sukhoi Su-15 – the Jet that Kept Killing the Wrong Targets

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.

The Sukhoi Su-15 (NATO reporting name: Flagon) is a twinjet supersonic interceptor aircraft developed by the Soviet Union. It entered service in 1965 and remained one of the front-line designs into the 1990s. The Su-15 was designed to replace the Sukhoi Su-11 and Sukhoi Su-9, which were becoming obsolete as NATO introduced newer and more capable strategic bombers. The supersonic Su-15 had the performance needed to chase down high-subsonic aircraft like the B-52 and Vulcan, and the range to do so while those aircraft were still far from their targets.

Sukhoi Su-15

The Su-15 formed the backbone of the Soviet interceptor forces from the 1960s into the 1980s, with a production run of 1,290 examples that ran from 1965 until 1979. Its introduction, around the same time as the widespread deployment of the SA-2 missile, forced the USAF and Royal Air Force to adopt low-level penetration tactics as flying at higher altitude was now near suicidal. The Su-15 lacked a radar that could see objects flying at low altitude, and this led to its eventual replacement with new versions of the MiG-23 as they became available. The MiG never wholly replaced the Su-15 before it was itself replaced by newer designs.

In its interceptor role, the Su-15 was involved in several incidents where foreign aircraft breached Soviet airspace, including the 1983 interception of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, leading to U.S. condemnation.

Top Photo: Sukhoi Su-15 (NATO code Flagon) armed with R-98MR missiles

Sources: YouTube; Wikipedia

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