Battle
airspace incident
On 5 June 1984, an air battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran took place near Arabi Island in the Persian Gulf.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Action of June 5, 1984”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
On 5 June 1984, an air battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran took place near Arabi Island in the Persian Gulf.
Saudi Arabia had been one of the Arab states backing Iraq during its war with Iran. Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini threatened to attack Saudi Arabia and other Arab states supporting Iraq.
Two Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantoms from Bushehr Air Base, had intruded into Saudi airspace, setting up for an attack on oil tankers. The planes were tracked by a United States Air Force E-3 Sentry AEW&C aircraft, which directed two patrolling Saudi F-15 Eagles armed with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles to intercept the Iranians.
The Saudis shot down one Iranian Phantom, killing 1st Lts Homayoun Hekmati and weapon systems officer Seyed Sirous Karimi. The second Iranian F-4 was damaged, and made an emergency landing at Kish Airport. The aircraft could not be repaired and was written off. This caused the Iranians to scramble 11 additional F-4s from Bushehr. The tense standoff reportedly lasted "several minutes" before the Iranian jets returned to their airbase.
In response, the Royal Saudi Air Force scrambled 11 additional F-15s. Seeing this, the Iranians backed down, and the Saudis returned to base.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1984 Arabi Island incident”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.