The Polisario Front has used SA-7s against the Royal Moroccan Air Force and Mauritanian Air Force during the Western Sahara War over the former Spanish colonies of the Spanish Sahara . The Mauritania Air Force lost a Britten-Norman Defender to a SA-7 fired by the Polisario on 29 December 1976 . Between 1975 and 1991 , the Royal Moroccan Air Force has lost several Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighters and Dassault Mirage F1s to SA-7s fired by the Polisario . In a case of mistaken identity , a Dornier Do 228 owned by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research was shot down over the Western Sahara near Dakhla on 24 February 1985 . Two Dornier 228s named Polar 2 and Polar 3 were on a return flight to Germany following a South Pole expedition . After having taken off from Dakar , Senegal , en route to Arrecife , Canary Islands , flying 5 minutes behind Polar 2 and at a lower altitude ( 9,000 feet ) , Polar 3 was shot down by a SA-7 fired by the Polisario . The crew of three was killed . In another incident , on 8 December 1988 , two Douglas DC-7CFs flying at 11,000 feet from Dakar , Senegal to Agadir , Morocco for a locust control mission there , had SA-7s fired at them by the Polisario . One aircraft , N284 , was hit and lost one of its engines and part of a wing . This led to the aircraft crashing , killing the crew of five . The other aircraft , N90804 , also was hit and lost an engine along with suffering other damage , but it was able to land safely at Sidi Ifni Morocco
Polar 3
Polar 3
9K32 Strela-2