The Only Privately Owned, Flyable MiG-23 Crashed in Michigan

A Michigan Air Show Turned Into a Near-Catastrophe

On August 13, 2023, the MiG-23UB known as N23UB was performing at the Thunder Over Michigan Air Show at Willow Run Airport near Ypsilanti. During the flight, the crew encountered a sudden loss of performance while maneuvering for a low-level display pass. The two men aboard ejected, and the aircraft continued descending before crashing near an apartment complex in Belleville. Miraculously, no one on the ground was injured.

That last part deserves bold print, underlining, and maybe a respectful whistle. Because this was a very close call. The jet came down near homes, damaged vehicles, and ignited a post-impact fire. Environmental response teams were also pulled in because the aircraft was carrying a substantial fuel load. In other words, this was not a dramatic but tidy runway excursion. It was the kind of accident that reminds everyonepilots, air show organizers, spectators, and nearby residentsthat aviation safety sometimes comes down to seconds, feet, and pure dumb luck refusing to clock in that day.

Early reports naturally focused on the visuals: the ejection, the fireball, the wreckage near the apartment lot. But the deeper story emerged later, especially after the NTSB’s final report. That report showed the crash was not simply a case of “old jet, bad day.” It involved a complex sequence of pilot decisions, a partial engine power loss that investigators could not fully explain, and the brutal reality of trying to save a high-performance aircraft at low altitude with almost no time to spare.

Why This MiG-23 Was Such a Big Deal

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The aircraft’s fame came from its rarity as much as its silhouette. Contemporary aviation coverage widely described it as the only privately owned, flyable MiG-23 in the world, while aviation organizations in the United States described it as the only flying example in the country. Either way, this was not a plane you casually spot between a T-6 Texan and a hot dog stand. It was an event aircraft.

The MiG-23UB itself was a two-seat trainer version of the Soviet-designed MiG-23 “Flogger,” a variable-sweep fighter that entered service in the Cold War and was built to replace the MiG-21. The design featured swing wings that could be positioned for better low-speed handling or swept back for higher-speed flight. That made it fast, distinctive, and mechanically more complicated than your average vintage jet. Translation: thrilling in the sky, demanding in the hangar, and absolutely not the sort of machine you maintain with a socket set and optimism.

The Michigan aircraft was owned by Dan Filer, a former U.S. Navy aviator and airline pilot who had spent years acquiring and restoring MiG-23s. The jet had been imported from the Czech Republic, and Filer had become known in aviation circles for keeping this unusual Soviet-era fighter flying in the United States. Just weeks before the crash, the aircraft had been drawing major attention at Oshkosh, where air show fans got a rare look at a machine most people know only from grainy Cold War photos and old threat-briefing lore.

The MiG-23’s Cold War Reputation

The MiG-23 was never quite the glamour queen of fighter history. It was fastvery fastand it introduced swing-wing flexibility to a Soviet fighter design intended for mass service. But it also developed a reputation for being demanding to fly and maintain. American pilots who later evaluated MiG-23 variants under programs like Constant Peg did not exactly write poetry about it. The jet was respected for speed and threat potential, but not loved for manners.

That tension is part of what made the Michigan aircraft so fascinating. The MiG-23 represented a chapter of Cold War aviation that is usually preserved behind velvet ropes or museum placards, not demonstrated at living, breathing air shows. When this one flew, it brought history to life in the most visceral way possible: noise, heat, smell, speed, and that unmistakable sense that some aircraft were built less like elegant instruments and more like arguments with gravity.

What the NTSB Says Happened

The NTSB’s final report offers the clearest reconstruction of the accident. The MiG-23 departed Willow Run and set up for what the report called a “banana pass,” essentially a low-level, knife-edge display pass. As the crew prepared for the maneuver, the wings were moved to a 45-degree sweep position. The pilot noticed the aircraft was slower than expected, though still above minimum maneuvering speed. Then came the critical moment: when he attempted to engage afterburner, there was no increase in engine power.

He tried again. Still nothing.

From there, the situation compressed fast. The pilot and rear-seat pilot-rated observer confirmed they had an emergency. The pilot turned back toward the airport while trying to restore thrust and keep the aircraft flying. The wings were moved to 16 degrees, the setting that would provide the most lift for lower-speed flight. The pilot later said the engine was still producing some thrust, just not enough to maintain both altitude and airspeed. He believed he could guide the aircraft toward a field short of the runway and away from the crowd.

The rear-seat observer saw the same emergency through a harsher lens. He reported dramatic deceleration, airspeed decay, and a situation that looked increasingly unrecoverable. He said the aircraft peaked around 900 feet above ground level and then began trading altitude for airspeed. He also believed the airplane was in and out of stall buffet. As the jet descended in a left turn, he initiated the ejection sequence at roughly 350 feet above ground level and below 200 knots.

That detail matters enormously. In a two-seat MiG-23UB, one crew member initiating ejection sends both people out. The rear seat fires first, then the front. The NTSB found that the ejection occurred at the last possible slice of survivability, not prematurely. Video showed the parachutes did not fully deploy until the occupants were just above treetop level. The final report also noted that the ejection seats were not true “zero-zero” seats, meaning they were not designed to guarantee safe escape at zero altitude and zero airspeed. This was not a Hollywood pop-and-float moment. It was a violent, marginal, barely-in-time escape.

The aircraft then continued descending and impacted the ground about 1.7 miles from the runway, coming to rest near an apartment building. The NTSB ultimately determined the probable cause was “a reported partial loss of engine power while maneuvering for reasons that could not be determined.” That phrase sounds dry, but it carries a lot of weight. It means investigators believed the loss of power was real and central to the crash, but they could not pin it on a confirmed mechanical culprit.

Why Investigators Couldn’t Fully Solve the Engine Mystery

This is where the story gets especially interesting, and frankly a little maddening. The NTSB found evidence that the engine was still producing some power at impact. But because of the extent of the damage, the rarity of the aircraft, and the lack of specialized support in the United States, investigators could not perform the kind of teardown examination that might have produced a definitive answer.

That is one of the strange realities of operating rare ex-military jets. If a common civilian turbine engine has a bad day, there is usually an ecosystem of shops, parts networks, and factory expertise ready to help. With a Soviet-era Tumansky turbojet in a privately owned MiG-23? That support structure is closer to “good luck, everyone.” The NTSB specifically noted it was unaware of any independent U.S. engine shop or manufacturer with the right tooling and expertise to perform a full teardown of this engine.

The investigation was complicated further by the fact that there was no useful flight recorder data. The airplane had no cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder, and postaccident review found no useful radar or ADS-B data for the flight. In modern aviation, investigators are often swimming in data. Here, they were piecing together the truth from witness videos, pilot statements, logbooks, wreckage evidence, and the bitter fact that rare aircraft do not always leave behind a digital breadcrumb trail.

There was also history in the maintenance record. According to the final report, the aircraft had experienced a previous engine power-loss event in 2018. After that, a fuel control unit was replaced. The pilot later suggested that both the 2018 event and the accident flight may have involved the exhaust nozzle assembly actuation system rather than the fuel control unit itself. The NTSB, however, could not validate that theory. So the final answer remained frustratingly incomplete: something reduced engine power, but investigators could not prove exactly what.

The Human Factor: A High-Experience Crew With Almost No Time

One of the most compelling parts of the report is that this was not a low-experience crew blundering into trouble. Both men were highly accomplished aviators with thousands of total flight hours and military backgrounds. The pilot had extensive experience as a former naval aviator and airline pilot. The rear-seat observer was also an airline transport pilot with military jet experience and formal training on multiple ejection seat systems.

And yet expertise did not make the emergency easy. That is one of the humbling truths of aviation. High total time is valuable, but time in type matters, and time available matters even more. The crew had strong credentials overall, but relatively limited time specifically in the MiG-23. More importantly, they were dealing with a partial power-loss emergency during a low-altitude display profile. That is the aviation equivalent of trying to solve a calculus problem while sprinting downhill on roller skates.

The NTSB report also makes clear that the two men did not see the same survivable path. The front-seat pilot believed he still had options and was working the problem. The rear-seat observer believed they were out of time and needed to eject. Those two views are not mutually absurd. They are the sort of split-second judgment conflict that can emerge in a fast-moving emergency, especially in an unusual aircraft with limited energy and no altitude cushion. The final report does not turn that disagreement into a cartoon villain story. It presents it as a brutally compressed decision point in an already failing situation.

What the Crash Means for Warbird Safety

There is a temptation after accidents like this to land in one of two lazy positions. One camp says, “Ban these exotic jets from public flying displays.” The other says, “Risk is part of aviationcarry on.” Reality, as usual, is messier and less convenient.

The Michigan MiG-23 crash is a case study in why rare military aircraft occupy such a difficult place in aviation culture. On one hand, flying them preserves living history. A MiG-23 at an American air show is not just a cool shape in the sky. It is an artifact of geopolitics, engineering doctrine, air combat evolution, and Cold War design philosophy. Seeing one fly teaches the public something museums alone cannot: what it looked like, sounded like, and moved like when it was alive.

On the other hand, preserving history in flight is not the same as preserving it in a climate-controlled gallery. A flyable warbird is a machine under stress, supported by specialized maintenance, limited parts, and sometimes scarce technical expertise. The older and rarer the aircraft, the more that risk can compound. The NTSB report in this case highlights exactly that problem. Investigators faced real limits because the aircraft and engine were so unusual within the U.S. maintenance ecosystem.

There is also a public-safety dimension that cannot be shrugged off with a pilot’s grin and a “she’s a handful.” This aircraft came down near an apartment building, with nearly 1,000 gallons of jet fuel on board according to federal environmental response information. The outcome could have been far worse. So while the crash does not automatically prove that rare jets have no place at air shows, it absolutely strengthens the case for relentless scrutiny around display profiles, emergency planning, maintenance support, venue layout, and ground-risk analysis.

Final Thoughts

The crash of the MiG-23 in Michigan was not merely the loss of a rare airplane. It was the collision of history, spectacle, mechanical uncertainty, and human judgment in a matter of seconds. The aircraft mattered because it was exceptional. The accident mattered because it came terrifyingly close to becoming a mass-casualty event. And the investigation mattered because it showed both how much we can learn from modern accident analysis and how much uncertainty still remains when a rare aircraft breaks in a rare way.

In the end, the most sobering detail is not that a famous Soviet fighter crashed. It is that even with an experienced crew, even with a jet that was still producing some thrust, even with a pilot trying to save it, the margin at low altitude vanished almost instantly. That is the lesson here. Air show flying can be dazzling, educational, and historically meaningful. But physics is a ruthless editor, and it cuts long before the applause does.

Related Experiences: What This Story Feels Like From the Flight Line, the Apartment Lot, and the Crowd

To really understand why the Michigan MiG-23 crash hit so hard, you have to think beyond the accident sequence and into the human experience around it. For air show fans, a rare warbird arrival is half history lesson, half rock concert. People had come to see a machine that almost never appears in the American sky. A MiG-23 is not background noise. It is the sort of airplane that makes even seasoned aviation people stop mid-sentence, squint into the distance, and suddenly remember every Cold War poster they ever saw. The sound, the wing sweep, the sheer oddity of a Soviet fighter performing in Michiganthis was supposed to be one of those unforgettable “I can’t believe I saw that fly” moments.

Instead, it became unforgettable for the worst possible reason.

For spectators, the experience must have changed in an instant from admiration to confusion to dread. One second you are watching a display pass and thinking about horsepower, paint scheme, and camera angles. The next, you are trying to process two ejection seats firing and a rare jet dropping toward the ground. That kind of whiplash is hard to describe unless you have been around live aviation events. Air shows are carefully choreographed theater, so when the choreography breaks, the brain lags behind reality. People often do not react immediately because they are still mentally filing what they are seeing under “part of the show.” Then the smoke arrives, and the illusion disappears.

For the people living near the crash site, the experience would have been even more brutal: no ticket, no warning, no chosen proximity to risk. A warbird coming down near an apartment complex is a stark reminder that aviation incidents do not always stay politely inside airport fences. Residents were suddenly pushed into a situation involving fire, debris, emergency response, and uncertainty about whether the danger was over. Even when nobody on the ground is physically injured, that kind of near miss leaves a psychological footprint. It is one thing to read about aviation risk in the abstract. It is another to see wreckage where your parked car was supposed to be having a very ordinary Sunday.

Then there is the museum and warbird community side of the experience, which carries its own strange mix of emotions. People in that world know how much labor goes into keeping aircraft like this alive. Restoring and operating a MiG-23 is not just expensive; it is obsessive. It takes technical skill, sourcing ability, logistics, persistence, and a willingness to chase solutions that most sane people would describe as “an excellent reason to sit down.” So when an aircraft like this is destroyed, the grief is not just about metal. It is about years of restoration, preservation, curation, and ambition going up in smoke.

That is why this story lingers. It was a public spectacle, a neighborhood scare, an investigative puzzle, and a cultural loss all at once. For aviation enthusiasts, it felt like seeing a rare page of history torn out in real time. For residents, it was a terrifying brush with disaster. For pilots and maintainers, it was a reminder that rare aircraft can be both magnificent and merciless. And for everyone watching, it was one of those moments when the romance of flight and the danger of flight stopped pretending they were separate things.