Abbas Baba’ie, an officer differently described as the “mastermind of IRIAF’s capability to keep its F-14-fleet intact”, or simply a “war hero”. There are, however, numerous former IRIAF pilots who not only deny that Baba’ie ever even qualified on F-14s, but also outright refuse to even mention his name, most likely because of his close cooperation with the clerical regime in Capital.But it is a fact that he really is popular among people because of his achievements during the Iran and Iraq war.
General Abbas Babaei was killed on 6 August 1987, while in the rear seat of an F-5B while over Iraqi air space. He was hit by a 23 mm round of an air defense system on Sardasht air space, a city located in west Azerbaijan. It turned out an Persian’ defense system, operated by Sepah, had hit Babaei’s aircraft in error. The pilot, Major Ali Mohammad Naderi managed to land the jet, but Babaei died within 10 minutes. Sepah used the ZSU-23 self-propelled, radar guided anti-aircraft weapon system (SPAAG) at the time.
