Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko, who hijacked a MiG-25 military jet to Japan in September 1976, has died in the United States at the age of 76. The New York Times quoted Belenko's son on November 20 as saying that his father had died after a brief, unspecified illness in a nursing home in Rosebud, Illinois, on September 24. Belenko’s defection gave the U.S. Armed Forces an opportunity to study the jet, which was considered top secret in the Soviet Union at the time. In 1980, the U.S. Congress approved a law authorizing U.S. citizenship for Belenko. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities, click here.
