ELMENDORF, Air Force Base, Alaska -- Two Soviet MiG-29 jet fighters and a cargo aircraft landed and refueled without incident Sunday -- the first time Soviet military aircraft have touched down on United States soil.
A crowd of military officials, military camera crews and the press met the aircraft and the Soviets, who held a press conference and lunched during their 3 -hour visit.
Civilians were not allowed on the air base for the visit.
The AN-225 cargo aircraft landed first, escorted by U.S. F-15 Eagle fighters from bases in southeast Alaska. The six-engined AN-225 Mriya is the world's largest aircraft, and is used in the soviet space program to carry the Buran space shuttle.
The MiG-29 fighters arrived two hours before they were expected, just after the huge cargo aircraft touched down. The high-speed, gray and green camouflaged jets, whose NATO code name is Fulcrum, made several high-speed passes and circled the airfield before landing.
Elmendorf Air Foce Base is about a mile north of Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska.
The Soviet jets were on their way to an air show in Abbotsford, British Columbia, near Vancouver. The aircraft were intercepted and escorted in what an air Force official called a routine procedure. They were tracked on radar until escort aircraft arrived, an Air Force official said.
Air Force F-15s in Alaska often are dispatched to meet and ward off Soviet planes that fly close to the U.S. border.
One of the F-15 pilots who escorted the fighters Sunday said he was impressed with the MiGs' capabilities.
Capt. Rich Armstrong, based in Galena, Alaska, got close enough to wave to the Soviet pilots, he said. 'It was a thrill to be the first American pilot up there next to a Soviet frontline aircraft,' Armstrong said.
The Soviet jets were escorted out of Elmendorf, again by four F-15s. Canadian CF-18 fighters were to meet them near the Canadian border, an Air Force spokesman said.
They came from a Soviet air base at Anadyr, about 900 miles west of Anchorage.
The Fulcrum looks like a cross between the U.S. F-15 and F-18 fighters. The MiGs entered Soviet service in 1985 and more than 450 operate in Soviet Air Force units in East Germany, Hungary and bases west of Ural Mountains.
Civilian test pilot Anatoly Kvotchur flew the twin-seat Fulcrum-B. Kvotchur flew a Fulcrum at the Paris Air Show two months ago when birds were sucked into its intake, causing the plane to crash. Kvotchur ejected, and said Sunday he had recuperated from his injuries.
'I feel quite well,' he said through a translator.
Kvotchur is employed by Mikoyan Design Bureau and will fly the Fulcrum at the Canadian Air Show.
