List of Cold War Pilot Defections - Greece

Greece

  • On 11 September 1970 A Greek Air Force C-47 crossed into Soviet airspace in the area of Sevastopol in order to defect. The pilot of a Su-15 flew up alongside and rocked his wings, signaling "follow me". The C-47 complied and landed at Bel'bek airbase. The Greek pilot, Captain Mikhalis Maniatakis had stolen the aircraft from Chania airbase on Crete to flee from junta-controlled Greece. Maniatakis requested political asylum in the USSR.
  • On 25 November 1973 A Greek Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Dimitrios Zelios landed at an airport in the southeast Italian city of Brindisi and asked for political asylum.

Read more about this topic:  List Of Cold War Pilot Defections

Famous quotes containing the word greece:

    It was modesty that invented the word “philosopher” in Greece and left the magnificent overweening presumption in calling oneself wise to the actors of the spirit—the modesty of such monsters of pride and sovereignty as Pythagoras, as Plato.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    The science, the art, the jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern world have grown out of Greece and Rome—not by favor of, but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of this world were alike despicable.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
    Let him combat for that of his neighbors;
    Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
    And get knocked on the head for his labors.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)