U.S. victory On 4 January 1989, two Grumman F-14 Tomcats of the United States Navy shot down two Libyan-operated Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 Floggers which the American aircrews believed were attempting to engage and attack them, as had happened eight years prior during the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident.

[1] In 1973, Libya claimed much of the Gulf of Sidra (south of Latitude 31° 30′) as its territorial waters and subsequently declared a "line of death", the crossing of which would invite a military response.

[6] On the morning of 4 January 1989, the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy was sailing toward the eastern Mediterranean Sea for a scheduled port visit to Haifa, Israel.

[4][8] Aircraft operating from the Kennedy included several flights of A-6 Intruders on exercises south of Crete, two pairs of F-14 Tomcats from VF-14 and VF-32 conducting combat air patrols, and an E-2 Hawkeye from VAW-126 providing airborne early warning and control.

[8] At 11:55 local time, the airborne E-2 detected two Libyan MiG-23 Floggers taking off from Bomba (Al Bumbah) airfield near Tobruk, and observed them heading north toward the battle group.

[10] Using their onboard radars, the intercepting F-14s began tracking the MiG-23s when the Libyan aircraft were 72 nautical miles (133 km) away, at an altitude of 8,000 feet (2,400 m) and traveling at 420 knots (780 km/h; 480 mph).

Unlike some previous aerial encounters in which Libyan pilots were instructed to turn back after detecting an F-14's radar signal sweep their aircraft, the MiG-23s continued to close on the American fighters with a head-on approach.

At 12:00:53, the Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the lead F-14, Commander Leo Enwright in Gypsy 207, ordered the arming of the AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles on the American fighters, after what he determined was the fifth time the Libyan aircraft turned back toward them.

[9][15] Gaddafi could have believed the U.S. was preparing for an attack on the chemical facility in Rabta and ordered his military to see if the aircraft offshore were bombers bound for targets in Libya.

[11] The possible reasons for the MiG-23s' flight profile range from a deliberate attack against the battle group to a radio breakdown with ground controllers leading to the Libyan fighters merging with the F-14s.

The turns by the Libyan pilots prior to the first missile launch by the F-14s were considered too slight to be hostile, according to U.S. House Armed Services Committee chairman Les Aspin.

[15] At the request of the National Air and Space Museum, the U.S. Navy provided Bureau Number (BuNo) 159610 to its Udvar-Hazy location near Dulles International Airport.