Did you know the USSR shot down an Iranian Chinook?

In 1978, four Iranian CH-47Cs flew 15 to 20 km (9 to 12 miles) into the airspace of the Soviet Union, in the Turkmenistan Military District. They were intercepted by a MiG-23M fighter, which shot down one of the helicopters and forced a second to land. All eight crew members of the downed Chinook were killed.

The Iranian Chinooks had been built in Italy. In the 1970s, Iran and the United States maintained a close relationship, and the Iranian armed forces were modernized with American equipment, such as the F-14 Tomcat. Thanks to an agreement between Boeing and Agusta, the Imperial Iranian Air Force bought twenty Agusta-built CH-47Cs in 1971, and the Imperial Iranian Army Aviation acquired another 70 between 1972 and 1976. Agusta, later AgustaWestland and now Leonardo, was one of two licensed production lines outside the United States; the other was Kawasaki's in Japan. Libya, for its part, bought another 24 Italian-built CH-47Cs in 1976.

In late 1978, Iran ordered another 50 helicopters from Elicotteri Meridionali, but the order was cancelled immediately after the revolution; only 11 were delivered, after multiple Iranian requests. In 1979 the Chinooks were used against Kurdish rebels. The 1978 shootdown thus took place in the final months of the Shah's regime, when Iran was still a Washington ally on the Soviet Union's southern border and operated one of the largest Chinook fleets outside the United States.