Missing in MiG Alley

Original PBS Broadcast Date: December 18, 2007

In the early 1950s, epic battles unfolded in the skies over North Korea as American and Russian fighters faced off in history's first jet war. This program explores the Korean War's aerial tactics, technology, and grim aftermath for downed pilots, many of whom disappeared without a trace.

The Korean War pitted the two most advanced fighters of their day, the American F-86 Sabre and the Soviet MiG-15, in furious air battles in North Korea's notorious "MiG Alley." With the help of dramatic reconstructions, rare archival footage, and interviews with veteran American and Soviet pilots, NOVA puts viewers in the cockpit to experience the lethal split-second duels that erupted in MiG Alley.

"Missing in MiG Alley" investigates the pioneering engine technology and cutting-edge aerodynamic designs that gave both the Sabre and MiG their phenomenal performance capabilities (see MiG vs. Sabre Anatomy). The MiG, for example, was a brilliant blend of borrowed elements: Like the Sabre, the MiG's raking swept wing was inspired by the Nazi high-speed, swept-wing fighter design, while its engine was a direct copy of an advanced Rolls-Royce model that the British rashly handed over to the Russians in a post-war trade agreement. Both fighters were so well matched that human factors?-superior training and tactics?-as well as plain luck proved to be crucial in deciding MiG Alley's harrowing dogfights.

The program also follows the poignant efforts of family members to trace what happened to airmen who disappeared over 50 years ago. The files are still open on over two dozen Sabre pilots who were shot down behind enemy lines and whose fate has never been definitively established. Years after the Korean War ended in 1953, rumors persist of pilots held captive by the Soviets. (For more on efforts to find missing service personnel, see Bringing Home MIAs.)

Although the Soviet Union was not officially a combatant in the Korean War, it supplied its latest aircraft, the MiG-15, to North Korea and China, and the skill of the MiG pilots soon caused Americans to suspect they were dealing not just with Soviet planes but with Soviet pilots, who were among the best in the world.

"Neither before nor after the war were we allowed to reveal that we were going to fly for the North Koreans," MiG pilot Sergei Kramarenko tells NOVA. Kramarenko was one of the top Soviet aces of the war. In addition to helping their North Korean allies, the Soviets were eager to test their planes and pilots against the U.S. Air Force as a proving ground for a possible World War III.

But the Soviets' intense interest in the capabilities of U.S. jets was bad news for captured Sabre pilots, since it often led to harsh questioning by Soviet interrogators. Former POW Michael DeArmond tells NOVA that he "became more and more concerned about the purpose of this Russian running my interrogation, because one of my frankly deepest fears was to wind up in a gulag someplace. So I tried to be the dumbest F-86 pilot he had ever interrogated."

DeArmond's ruse worked, but he's convinced that at least three fellow pilots were sent to Russia for further questioning. Their fate is unknown.

In the most moving part of the program, NOVA traces the efforts of three families to learn what happened to their loved ones, all Sabre pilots. Russia's newly opened archives provide some clues, while the Chinese are now receptive to searches of Sabre crash sites on their territory.

At the climax of the film, one such search yields stirring clues to the fate of a missing Sabre pilot: the sole of a shoe, a watchband, a rusted pocket knife, and a handful of bones hint at his identity. A DNA analysis of the bones finally brings closure to a grieving son after more than half a century.

Captain Troy Cope is one of the American F-86 pilots who was shot down over MiG Alley, his plane and remains lost for over half a century. "Missing in MiG Alley" chronicles his fate.