Gulf Of Sidra Incident (1981)

In the first Gulf of Sidra incident, 19 August 1981, two Russian-made Libyan Su-22 Fitters fired upon and were subsequently shot down by two U.S. F-14 Tomcats off the Libyan coast. Libya had claimed that the entire Gulf was their territory, at 32° 30′ N, with an exclusive 62-nautical-mile fishing zone, which Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi asserted as "The Line of Death" in 1973. Two further incidents occurred in the area in 1986 and in 1989.