Skip to content
The War AtlasThe · War · Atlas

BATTLE // January 4, 1989

Gulf of Sidra incident

LOADING MAP TELEMETRY…

Overview

On 4 January 1989, two Grumman F-14A Tomcats of the United States Navy shot down two Libyan-operated Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23ML Flogger-G 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. The engagement took place over the Mediterranean Sea, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Tobruk, Libya.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Commanders (2)

Libya

United States

Compare with sibling battle

6 options

Pick a battle to compare side-by-side

Related

6 sibling battles · 0 factions

Last verified May 2026
Cite this page →Suggest a correction →