I am getting this story from my father who has heard it on local NYC russian radio station durring an interview with the primary sourse of this story.
Alexandr Okon a russian immigrant of 74 years old is supposedly a retired Major of russian army who was interviewed on the radio station today. His story goes like this.
On June 1, 1968 a US cargo aircraft from Seatle bound for Vietnam was carrying 234 soldiers plus 5 plane crew. The plane steered of course and came within Russias airspace. Okon at the time was in charge of Chukotskiy Poluostrov PVO (air defense). Under orders from Moscow he was ordered to not shut down the plane but to force it to land.
Four fighters surounded the plane, two on each side and one in front and other on top and were giving it the international signals to follow them for landing. After US plane did not cooperate a warning shot was fired by above plane after which the US pilot cooperated and landed at a russian base.
All crew members spend 3 days there and were well treated after which the plane was fueled and went on to its destination.
According to him all this was classified on both sides not to be reporeted in mass media yet. Supposedly he had brought pictures to the radio station of the incedent. Couple of other russian imigrants called the station and claimed that they have been in Russias army at Chukotskiy and confirmed that they had been briefed about the events.
Okon named the US pilot but my father does not remember.
I dont know of the validity of this story and was hopping if anyone could have a comment. It seemed unlikely to me that 235 US infantry man could keep this kind of thing secret all this time, or maybe its a known story among Vietname veterans and the media hadnt picked up on its importance. Do you think a story like this would be newsworthy considering what happened with china and US spy plane?