Raw footage from Yom Kippur War shows Israeli F-4 Phantom Shoot Down Egyptian MiG-17

David Cenciotti
2 Min Read

An amazing footage from 41 years ago shows a dogfight between an Israeli Phantom and an Egyptian Mig.

This clip, part of the documentary “Israel: A Home Movie” was filmed by Moshe Shargal who recalls the day when, in 1973, along with his friends, he witnessed a dogfight between an Israeli Air Force F-4 Kurnass (Sledgehammer) and an Egyptian MiG-17 over Ras Muhammad beach, at the southern extreme of the Sinai Peninsula, overlooking the Gulf of Suez, a territory captured by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967.

It was Oct. 6, 1973, the day the hostilities started.

Suddenly, a group of Israeli friends who were celebrating the Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, in the Israeli-occupied territories, saw MiG fighter jets flying into Israel.

Twenty minutes later they spotted a MiG-17 again, followed by a Phantom that fired an air-to-air missile that brought down the Egyptian fighter jet.

Although bad in quality, the footage is an amazing document of one of the Israeli aerial victories during the Yom Kippur War.

In 1973, Israeli Air force (IAF) found itself facing an Arab Air Forces coalition which was composed by Egyptian and Syrian fighter squadrons, but also by units from Algeria, Iraq, Libya and … North Korea, that deployed a MiG-21 squadron to Bir Arida to protect Egypt’s south.

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.
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