Soviet General Critical of Warsaw Pact in MIG Case

In remarkably candid comments, a senior officer of the Soviet air force said Thursday that he was disappointed by the inability of Warsaw Pact air commanders to identify and stop a pilotless Soviet MIG-23 before it crossed four international borders and crashed into a house in Belgium, killing one man.

Lt. Gen. Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov, the first deputy commander of the air force, revealed that the Soviets learned only from Western reports what had happened to the plane Tuesday after its pilot, believing his aircraft had suffered engine failure, bailed out over Poland.

Soviet officials acted upon an assumption that the plane crashed into the Baltic Sea, but “unfortunately, we learned that this was not true only from Western sources,” said Shaposhnikov.

“It’s hard to say yet whether this is a case of negligence or a lack of organization,” he said. “I must tell you as a military man I am disappointed that the pilotless plane was not detected by our Northern Army Group commanders.”

He added that the actions of the pilot, Col. Nikolai I. Skuridin, are under investigation.

Skuridin himself appeared at a news conference Thursday to apologize publicly.

“On behalf of myself, my family and my two children I would like to express my profound regret,” he said, adding that he had written a letter of sympathy to the family of the Belgian victim.

Despite Shaposhnikov’s outspoken expression of frustration, it appears unlikely that the incident would lead to a major shake-up like the one that followed the 1987 flight of West German teen-age pilot Mathias Rust from Helsinki, Finland, to Moscow. Soviet anti-aircraft forces failed to detect Rust’s plane, prompting the dismissal of then-Defense Minister Sergei L. Sokolov.

But Shaposhnikov called Tuesday’s incident “unique” and said it was caused by a “chain of coincidences.”

The crash occurred after Skuridin, while on a training mission, ejected from his jet near Kolobrzeg, Poland, because he believed that the plane’s engine had died.

He tried to point the jet toward the Baltic Sea before he parachuted. Instead the fighter flew unmanned more than 500 miles over Poland, East and West Germany and the Netherlands before crashing into a house on the French-Belgium border after it ran out of fuel. A 19-year-old man in the house was killed.

Skuridin, graying, in uniform and with his left hand bandaged because of an injury he suffered after parachuting to the ground, told reporters he was flying his second mission of the day when “I felt a sharp jerk . . . and there was a rapid drop in speed from 550 kilometers per hour to 250.”

“There was no noise coming from the engine,” he said.

“I pressed my right foot to try to steer the aircraft to the sea and then I said, ‘132 is ejecting.’ ”

Skuridin said as he ejected he looked to the right “and I saw the aircraft going down with black smoke billowing from it.”

In fact, the engine did not fail, and air force officials have said they will have to complete their investigation before they know what caused the plane to jerk and lose altitude.

The pilot told journalists that he had followed regulations in ejecting from the plane.

But Shaposhnikov said he was not yet ready to clear the pilot of blame.

“I have not yet drawn my conclusions as to whether the pilot acted correctly,” he said. “I need more information.”