Soviet fighters escorting commercial flights

Factual Questions
1

The recent thread about KAL 007 reminded me of something from my past and I didn’t want to hijack the thread.

Back in 1989 I was on an air France flight from Paris to Moscow. As we passed into soviet airspace we were met by 2 fighters who escorted us almost all of the way to the airport. These were flying quite close with one on each side of us. You could almost read the pilots name tag as they were that close! You could certainly count the missiles.

My question is: was this normal during the Cold War? Or were we possibly getting special treatment for some reason? It was the week that the soviets held their first free elections as part of glasnost if that makes a difference.

I was a dumb teenager who hadn’t flown much in those days. So I kind of accepted it as normal. Today I would be far more excited and curious about a couple of migs flying that close.

2

I had a similar experience flying into Moscow in the early 90’s, and there was never an explanation, so I assumed at the time it was ‘normal’.

I would like to think that they were there to protect us from something, but I can’t imagine what we were being protected from.

3

Mathias Rust?

4

Most likely to prevent straying. If the fighters detect the airliner going off course, they’ll raise a ruckus. The Soviets had so much secret crap all over the place the flight path might have been quite narrow with several extra turns.

5

Sort of related, in 1987 or so, I was in college in upstate New York. I attended a debate or discussion on campus about nuclear weapons or disarmament. One of the speakers was from the Soviet embassy in New York. We talked to him afterwards and he mentioned that he was told to drive a specific route from Manhattan to Troy, and that he was followed, presumably by US government men.

Later, in the early 1990s, I worked for a small engineering firm in Westchester County. We were trying for some military contracts so we got security clearances. We were given wallet cards listing certain license plate numbers. We were told that these plate numbers were issued to certain UN delegates and the cars were not supposed to travel outside a circle 10 or 25 miles from the UN. If we spotted one of these license plates in Westchester County, there was a number we could call to report them.

My point is that the US government was similarly cautious.