U.S. Releases Combat Footage Of First Air-to-Air Kill Since 1999

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Not Really A Fight.

Long gone are the days of dogfighting. After World War II, which saw a lot of air to air kills, there were some in Korea and Vietnam, but dogfighting, in essence, has long been gone. In the age of stealth fighters and missiles able to hit a penny from thousands of miles away, that’s something today’s aviators never got to do. Until now that is.

Although the event transpired in June of 2017, the footage of the shootdown was only just recently released. We don’t want to go into the politics here as the Syrian war is confusing and very polarized, but here’s what happened between these two planes. 

An Su-22, an early 70s Soviet ground attack jet, was deployed by al-Assad to bomb U.S. led coalition forces on the ground. Intercepted by a U.S. F/A-18E Super Hornet, it was met with a show of force and the ground attack aircraft backed off for a bit. 

About two hours later, the Su-22 came back and dropped bombs on targets and was immediately shot down using an AIM-120 AMRAAM. The video clip below that was just released shows the direct hit.  

The pilot of the Syrian jet ejected but was never recovered and was declared MIA.