That Time A Soviet Tu-16 Badger Crashed Into The Sea After Buzzing A U.S. Aircraft Carrier

A screenshot from the video filmed aboard USS Essex shows the Tu-16 Badger flying very low close to the aircraft carrier.

Low pass with a deadly ending.

Low flybys of Russian planes on U.S. Navy warships (and vice versa) are somehow frequent as the reports of Russian Su-24 Fencer bombers buzzing USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea prove.

Usually, such “shows of force” are uneventful: the aircraft fly by, some nice pictures or videos are shot and that’s it. However, about 50 years ago, a close encounter at sea had a deadly ending.

On May 25, 1968, a Soviet Badger-F aircraft (a reconnaissance variant of the twin-engined jet strategic heavy bomber used by the Soviet Union, equipped with ELINT sensors) flew some very low flybys close to USN carrier USS Essex in the Norwegian sea.

After the last pass, the aircraft, piloted by Colonel Andrey Pliyev, stalled and crashed into the sea in a huge explosion, killing all six crew members. Debris were reportedly found about 240 km west of the Norwegian coast.

According to “Cold War Warriors” the footage was considered classified by the Soviets and never shown in Russia until 2008.

A Soviet TU-16 medium jet bomber flies past the anti-submarine warfare support aircraft carrier USS Essex (CVS-9) while the ship is conducting training exercises in the Norwegian Sea, May 25th 1968.

On its fourth and last pass, the aircraft came within approximately 20 yards of the Essex’s port quarter at an altitude of about 120 feet.

While flying away at an altitude estimated by eye-witnesses to be less than 50 feet, the Soviet aircraft’s wing clipped the sea and it crashed with no survivors.