The day after his “Flogger” crashed into a farmhouse near Kortrijk, Belgium, tragically killing the 18-year-old Belgian man in the house, Col Skurigin publicly apologized, saying: “If I could have foreseen such tragic consequences to this pilotless flight, I would have stayed in the plane to the end.”

The sadness of the innocent’s death notwithstanding, the 32r TFS Zulu log — usually the source of lurid details of ALPHA KILO activity — entry for the day is succinct: “Nice Alpha scramble today; but, we’re under orders to kill you if we talk about it. ‘JD.'”

(This article was originally published last month.)

This article by Dario Leone originally appeared on The Aviation Geek Club in 2019.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.