Hobby Master Archive

Libya declared the Gulf of Sidra as territorial waters but the US disputed this and in 1981 Libya lost two jet fighters. On January 4, 1989 there was a second Gulf of Sidra incident when two Libyan MiG-23s headed towards the USS Kennedy battle group. F-14s from VF-32 “Swordsmen” turned toward the MiGs as a warning. As the opposing forces advanced the F-14s broke off several times to tell the MiGs they didn’t want to engage but the two MiG-23s continued and were destroyed.