Introducing Wing Commander (ret) Chris Mirow:      

“We dropped out of the overcast at about eight hundred feet.  I glanced to my right and Fergie was nicely tucked into echelon.  I waved him out to combat and looked ahead to get my bearings.  It looked like Keddah Peak disappearing up into the clouds just up to the north and we were rapidly closing the Malaysian coast.  I was thinking that we had been well positioned by our Ground Control Intercept controller so that we could turn to join for a right initial and special Visual approach to runway one eight at Butterworth.  But something didn’t look right.  As we crossed the coast I looked down and thought, this isn’t bloody right!! 

Listen to Chris’ podcast to hear the rest of this challenging situation.

Chris Mirow also tells us about his life flying Sabres and Mirages in the Australian Air Force. 

His Sabre flying consisted of operations in Williamtown, Malaysia and in Thailand, on air defence related to the Vietnam War.

His Mirage flying included an aerobatic display team to mark the 50^th anniversary of the RAAF.

In May 1971, Chris was posted to Vietnam and attached to the Eleventh Brigade of the twenty third Infantry Division as a Forward Air Controller.

Chris will tell you that they were later to be more than disappointed with their welcome home to Australia.

He continued his fighter operations for some years including becoming a Fighter Combat Instructor, possibly the pinnacle of fighter flying.