World Notes EAST-WEST

Talk about automatic pilot. When two American F-15 jets rose to intercept an alien aircraft that was entering West German airspace at 9:42 a.m. last Tuesday, they encountered an empty Soviet MiG-23 fighter. Flying at an altitude of nearly 40,000 ft., the plane was without a pilot, and its canopy was gone. For fear of creating lethal falling debris, officials of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization refrained from ordering the craft shot down and instead told the U.S. pilots to escort it out to open sea. But the MiG ran out of fuel near the Belgian town of Kortrijk and crashed into a house, killing a 19-year-old man.

) Embarrassed Soviet officials later explained that the MiG's pilot had ejected shortly after takeoff from Poland's Kolobrzeg air base, in the mistaken belief that his aircraft had lost power. The plane flew on automatic pilot for 1 hour and 37 minutes, covering 560 miles before falling out of the sky. Soviet officials promised to pay for "physical and moral damages" caused by the mishap.