On 4 July 1989, a pilotless MiG-23 jet fighter of the Soviet Air Forces crashed into a house in Bellegem, near Kortrijk, Belgium, killing one person.

The pilot had ejected over an hour earlier near Kołobrzeg, Poland, after experiencing technical problems, but the aircraft continued flying for around 900 km (600 mi) before running out of fuel and crashing into the ground.

[3] At that stage the aircraft was potentially heading towards the United Kingdom's airspace, so a live armed Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) Phantom FGR2 of 56(F) Squadron was scrambled from RAF Wattisham in Suffolk and instructed to fly at maximum subsonic speed to the Kent coast and be prepared to shoot the MiG down if it crossed the English Channel.

The escorting F-15s were instructed to shoot down the plane, but as the MiG ran out of fuel, it started a slow turn to the south, prompting the French Air Force to put its fighters on alert.

The Belgian Foreign Minister Mark Eyskens expressed concern that "from the time the MiG-23 was first picked up on NATO radar to the time it crashed more than an hour later, no word of warning came from the Soviet side," and that "there was also a 'notable slowness' on the part of the Soviets in disclosing whether the jet was carrying nuclear or toxic weapons.