2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown military of its jet's flight plan. The Russian pilot and weapon systems officer both ejected from the aircraft. The weapon systems officer was rescued; the pilot was shot and killed by Syrian rebel ground fire while descending by parachute. A Russian naval infantryman from the search and rescue team launched to retrieve the two airmen was also killed when a rescue helicopter was targeted by the rebels. The shooting down of the Sukhoi Su-24M was the first destruction of a Russian or Soviet Air Forces warplane by a NATO member state since the attack on the Sui-ho Dam (during the
Sukhoi system, landing braking parachute, catapult ejection seat with telescopic trolley, and a jettisonable nose with a pressurized cockpit. From 1949, Sukhoi fell out of Stalin's favor and in a government resolution, the Sukhoi Design Bureau was scrapped, and Sukhoi was forced to return to work under Andrei Tupolev, this time as Deputy Chief Designer. In 1953, the year of Stalin's death, he was permitted to re-establish his own Sukhoi Design Bureau, set up with new production facilities. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, each of the multitude of bureaus and factories producing Sukhoi components was privatized independently. In the