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On January 4, 1989, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy was sailing through the Mediterranean Sea with numerous aircraft from its air wing aloft for training exercises and patrol missions — a common practice while carriers are at sea.
At 11:55 a.m., one of those planes, an E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft, detected two Libyan Air Force MiG-23s taking off from an air base in northeastern Libya and heading toward the carrier.
Two nearby F-14 Tomcats were ordered to intercept the MiGs. The air battle that followed was a victory for the Tomcats, but it soon became a headache for the Pentagon.
Mediterranean tensions
By the late 1980s, U.S.-Libya relations had deteriorated, driven in part by territorial disputes in the Mediterranean.
In 1973, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi claimed almost all of the Gulf of Sidra as territorial waters and declared that any crossing of his “Line of Death” would receive a military response.
The U.S. categorically rejected the declaration and conducted freedom-of-navigation exercises with warships and aircraft in defiance of Gaddafi's claim. Consequently, there were numerous intercepts and standoffs in the airspace and waters around Libya, some of which turned…
