During the Cold War, the United States actively monitored Soviet military activity around the globe, and on September 2, 1958, a nearly forgotten episode in history took the lives of 17 Air Force personnel. A C-130 aircraft left Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey, on a supposedly routine flight. The aircraft had a front-end crew of six men flying the plane and a back-end crew of eleven Russian linguists. They were enlisted men – part of the U.S. Air Force Security Service. Called “silent warriors,” their job was reconnaissance: they were to intercept Russian radio signals that would help evaluate their military strength and capabilities.

The Soviet Union’s policy, at the time, was to shoot down any aircraft that strayed across their borders. The policy of the United States was for pilots to make every effort to return to safe territory, and under no circumstances were they to land in a country hostile to the United States.

This ill-fated aircraft – # 60528 – was to fly its first leg from Turkey directly to Trabzon, a port on the Black Sea. A few miscalculations while flying through heavy clouds took the aircraft off course on a flight that now headed toward Batumi, which lies just inside the Armenian border.

Believing they had reached Trabzon, the pilot angled southeast, and within a short period of time, the plane accidentally crossed into Armenian and headed for the city of Yerevan. The Soviets were tracking the aircraft, and as soon as it penetrated their air space, two MiG-17s attacked the C-130. Years later, the U.S. acquired camera photos taken by the Russian pilots, as well as a transcript of their communications. One of them described the C-130 as a four-engine transport and knew it was unarmed. The U.S. plane was shot down, and all 17 crewmembers were killed.

On this date in 1958, barely a month before this tragedy, Fargo resident Del Dvoracek enlisted in the Air Force. After basic training, he was sent to the Presidio of Monterey, CA, where he spent nine months learning the Russian language. Ironically, his first assignment was in Trabzon, Turkey, the original first leg destination of the downed C-130. The Trabzon base was a ground station from where Dvoracek and other Russian linguists monitored Soviet air and naval traffic. Del remembers hearing a distant drone and spotting a C-130 aircraft flying over Trabzon and on over the Black Sea. At that time, he didn’t realize it was a reconnaissance plane.

After a year of duty, Dvoracek joined the 6916th RSM (Radio Squadron Mobile) in Frankfurt, Germany. He was dismayed when he discovered this was the base where the ill-fated 60528 was originally stationed. In fact, Dvoracek ended up flying for the same squadron, and over the next three years, he flew many reconnaissance missions to Adana, Turkey, and often peered out a porthole window to view Trabzon 26,000 feet below.

It was during this three-year stint that Dvoracek learned of the 1958 shoot-down. “While in Adana,” he says, “where I spent several trips on temporary duty, our crew often flew missions along the Armenian border, but most often down the middle of the Black Sea monitoring Soviet military air traffic. My most memorable flight was when an engine blew up during one of our missions. I thought for sure we were struck by a missile. Though the engine caught fire, it was put out utilizing the second firebomb. We returned to Adana, swapped all our equipment into a second aircraft and took off again. We were young and daring in those days, seemingly without much fear of being shot down.”

Over a three-year period, Dvoracek flew roughly 180 reconnaissance missions extending from Helsinki, Finland, to Teheran, Iran. “Those days were exciting,” he says, “but hardly a week goes by that I do not reflect on the men who died in aircraft 60528.”

Source: Dvoracek, Del. 2005.

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