Why Swedish Fighter Pilots Just Won Medals for a Top-Secret SR-71 Incident in 1987

Swedish pilots in Viggen fighter jets regularly trained to intercept the SR-71, though for the sake of practice, not malice. During this fateful flight of the “Baltic Express,” a Blackbird piloted by Lt. Cols. Duane Noll and Tom Veltri experienced engine trouble, losing power in one of the plane’s powerful Pratt & Whitney J58-1 afterburning turbofan engines.

The stricken plane apparently veered off course and flew into Swedish airspace over Gotland, descending more than ten miles to an altitude of 25,000 feet. The plane received an escort from two Swedish Air Force pilots who prepared to defend the SR-71 from possible interception by Soviet fighter jets.

As one of the four Swedish pilots involved in the incident explained at the medal ceremony: “We were performing an ordinary peacetime operation exercise. Our fighter controller then asked me are you able to make an interception and identification of a certain interest. I thought immediately it must be an SR-71, otherwise he would have mentioned it.”