Story of an unknown hero.

[JakeRS]

Since tomorrow is 24. of March, day when NATO in 1999 started its campaign against Serbia and Montenegro (then called F.R.Yugoslavia, not to be confused with ,,big Yugoslavia" that disintegrated in 1991) , I would like to make a thread dedicated to a MiG 29 pilot from that war, Milenko Pavlovich, that is more or less completely unknown to people outside of Serbia, even though I think many of you will be inspired by his story. In order to make the story easier to understand, I will first say a few words about the situation in the Serbian/Yugoslav air force at that moment.

 

In the 1980's there was a plan for a cooperation with France to build a Rafale multirole fighter with one engine, it was called Novi Avion or ,,New plane", the idea was to build 500 of them, 200 for domestic usage and 300 for export (or vice versa), the production was supposed to start somewhere in the 90's, but the breakup of the country in 1991 destroyed the future of the plane.

 

Yugoslavia bought 16 MiG 29's from the Soviets in the middle 80's as a temporary solution until the Novi Avion production started. Since Yugoslavia wasn't a member of the Warsaw pact, it received the export version of the original MiG 29, called 9.12B, there are 3 main versions of the original MiG 29, the 9.12 for the Soviets, 9.12A for the Warsaw pact allies and 9.12B for Yugoslavia, Iraq and so on. 9.12B has no ECM, it has no IFF and the radar is about half the strength of the original 9.12, so instead of some 60-70km range, the range is only 30-40 and Yugoslavia got 14 of them, plus 2 UB trainer versions, which don't even have a radar I think.

 

After Yugoslavia disintegrated in 1991, 2 countries remained, Serbia and Montenegro, all 14+2 MiG 29's remained there, however due to wars, sanctions, bad leadership, etc. from then everything just went downhill, not only that there was no new equipment for the army and air force from the late 80's, but even the things that remained didn't always work due to lack of resources, repairs,etc, so you can imagine what the situation was all the way in 1999, pilots say that the resources for the planes actually ended 2 years before the war, so not only that Yugoslavia had downgraded MiG 29's that can't threaten even the original MiG 29, but about half of them didn't even work, while the rest was barely working.

 

24. March 1999. - NATO starts bombing Serbia and Montenegro, hundreds of modernized F-15, F-16, F-18, Tornado, Harrier and many other planes attack on one side and only some of the 14 downgraded Mig 29's on the other side defend. Since those planes were the only thing that Yugoslavia could bring to the fight, they were hiding some of them, there were also fake models put on airfields to act as baits, but some did actually fly. Of the 16 Mig 29's, including the 2 UB trainer versions, 11 were destroyed, 5 on the ground and 6 in the air, all by F-16 and F-15's, except one which was shot down by mistake from the ground. There were also MiG 21's, but they weren't used of course.

 

On 4. May a group of 16 F-16's was flying around the city of Valyevo, one of the younger Serbian pilots, Dragan Radosavlyevich got the task to intercept them, however his commander, Milenko Pavlovich, said that he can't do that and said ,,you won't die, I will" after which he took the plane himself. He then started flying from Bataynica airport near Belgrade towards Valyevo, city close to a village where he was born.

After some time the radar broke down. While flying above Valyevo, he talked with the command and to their question ,,do you see the blue's (enemies)" he replied with ,,I see them, but they see me too", soon after that the red spot on the radars, representing his plane, dissapeared. His plane was shot two times, first time it was damaged, but the other shot completely destroyed the plane and Milenko Pavlovich was killed.

 

He had 2 sons, one 9 and the other 16 years old at the time and his younger son, Nemanya, lost his hair and eyebrows after that, the only good thing that came out of this was that no more pilots were sent on missions in which they had no chances and were lucky if they survived. He was the second pilot that was killed in action, the first being Zoran Radosavlyevich, whose MiG 29 was shot on 26.th March, 2 days after the start of the war.

 

This is Milenko Pavlovich in 1998, a year before the war, flying around Bataynica airport, the same airport where he took of on 4. May 1999

 

 

He officially didn't receive a medal or something declaring him as a hero, but people nonetheless consider him as a hero, a rap group even created a song dedicated to him [ame]

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Here are 2 29's of the Serbian air force, if I see correctly 1 9.12B and 1 UB

 

 

Of the 5 29's that survived the war, one crashed in 2009, so currently Serbia has only 3 9.12B's and 1 UB version, politicians promise new MiG 29M or SMT versions for years, but not a single combat vehicle or plane was bought since late 80's, so who knows when there will finally be something new.

[Yurgon]

Thank you for sharing this story!

[dooom]

wow - thanks for sharing.

[QuiGon]

Thanks for sharing this story. It's always nice to get some stories from "the other side". :thumbup:

 

Although they were our enemies back then, I have high respect for those soldiers who just did their job to protect their country. I've just read the story of Colonel Zoltán Dani, the serbian SAM battery commander who shot down the F-117: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolt%C3%A1n_Dani

It's a great story about a man who really knows his job. Some years after the war he and the F-117-pilot he shot down became good friends and started visiting each other and their families: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20209770 :)

 

It makes you think.

Edited March 24, 2016 by QuiGon

[Aginor]

Thanks for sharing.

[Vincent90]

Thanks for the story, I fell in love with Serbia years ago and even learned the language because of it

 

I read a story years ago that the MiG-29's weren't in flying shape at all and were so dangerous that the pilots refused to fly them. When a general called them traitors, they invited him to fly the thing and when he returned he was scared s***less!

 

Do you have any info on that story? And any books you can recommend?

[JakeRS]

To be honest I hear that for the first time, but I can investigate if you have some names or something.

 

Btw. one other interesting story that I do know is that in 1998 president of Belarus, Lukashenko, offered to Milosevic (Yugoslav leader) the S-300 as well as some Belarus planes and their pilots, but for some reason Milosevic said no and that he doesn't believe that NATO will attack Yugoslavia, that's from Lukashenko's personal interview to Serbian media.

 

Now whether he was stupid or a traitor who knows, but if he said yes, then Yugoslavia could have had at least something that can in some way counter NATO, the only 2 sam's that Yugoslavia had were the S-125 Neva (Sa-3), which has a relatively nice range, but is ancient, so it isn't that dangerous and the other is the Sa-6 Kub, which has a small range. Yugoslavia shot down both the F-16 and the F-117 using the ancient Sa-3, so imagine what a S-300 would do, sad thing is that even today the only sam's we have are those two types, the ones that survived the war, so because of that, from 1999 the ultimate wish Serbs could wish for is the S-300 and every now and then politicians promise it, but you know the drill, elections pass and then no one remembers anything anymore.