but the plane and the pilot were quickly picked up by officers of the Foreign Technology Division (FTD) of the U.S. Department of Defense. After being disassembled within 24 hours the Su-9 was transported to the US, while the pilot followed shortly after. On May 26, 1967, Lieutenant Vasily Ilych Epatko flew his MiG-17 (No. 25) from East Germany, where he was stationed, to West Germany and made a successful belly-landing in a field near Kicklingen, Bavaria. It was almost immediately photographed by a Canadian CF-104 RECCE aircraft from 1Wing, Lahr, Germany. He was granted asylum by the United States. On May 7, 1973, Lieutenant Yevgeny Vronsky flew his Sukhoi Su-7 from East Germany, where he was stationed, to West Germany and ejected near Wolfenbüttel. The wreckage of the aircraft was returned to the Soviet Union, but German authorities let Vronsky stay in the country. On September 6, 1976, Lieutenant Viktor Belenko flew to Hakodate Airport in Japan and defected with his MiG-25P to Hakodate, Japan. After being inspected by the Foreign Technology Division of the United States DoD, the MiG-25 was released to Japan, who then returned it in pieces to the Soviet Union after having been disassembled and analyzed by the United States. On May 20, 1989, Captain Aleksandr Zuyev defected with his Mikoyan MiG-29 to Trabzon, Turkey. In his autobiography Fulcrum: A Top Gun Pilot's Escape from the Soviet Empire'' (), Zuyev reported that the USSR quickly did a deal with the Turkish government upon his defection, and the MiG-29 was returned to the Soviet Union. According to Zuyev himself, the first words he said as he stepped out of the cockpit after his successful defection were: "I'm an American!". He was shot in the escape and was airlifted out of Turkey by a U.S. C-130 that same night to Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. Syria On 15–17 August 1968, the pilots of nine Syrian MiG-17s and three MiG-21s defected to Jordan after failing in a coup attempt On June 14, 1976, A Palestinian pilot in the Syrian Air Force, Flight Lieutenant Mahmoud Musleh Yasin, defected to Iraq with his MiG-23 Flogger. On July 27, 1976, Syrian pilot Captain Ahmed Abdul Qadar Al-Termanini, the "October war" hero, defected to Iraq with his MiG-21 fighter jet. On October 11, 1989, Syrian pilot Abdel Bassem landed his MiG-23ML in Israel. Taiwan On 12 January 1955, Major Xao Long