Steal the Sky (1988)

Interesting facts

Steal the Sky is a 1988 HBO movie directed by John D. Hancock and starring Mariel Hemingway and Ben Cross. The film is based on the true story of an Iraqi Assyrian fighter pilot Munir Redfa, who defected by flying a MiG-21 fighter jet to Israel in 1966. Steal the Sky was the first production under the HBO-Paramount co-financing agreement launched in 1987.

Production

Steal the Sky was filmed on location in Israel, Rome and Reno, Nevada. The story of Captain Munir Redfa inspired the film, but some aspects of his exploit were not revealed. In one of the Mossad's most significant operations, it was able to smuggle Redfa's entire extended family safely out of Iraq to Israel. Mossad did not have any involvement with Redfa's initial defection.

His MiG-21F-13 fighter was evaluated by the Israeli Air Force and was later loaned to the United States for testing and intelligence analysis. Knowledge obtained from analysis of the aircraft was instrumental to the successes achieved by the Israeli Air Force in its future encounters with Arab MiG-21s.

The aircraft used in the film were three MiG-15/15UTIs (actually ex-Polish SBLim-2s), three T-33s and a Bell Jet Ranger.

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