During the Cold War, a number of pilots from various nations (Eastern Bloc, Western Bloc, and non-aligned) defected with their aircraft to other countries.

Afghanistan On November 24, 1960, Royal Afghan Air Force pilot Abdus Samad Fazli defected by flying his J-3 Cub across the border to Pakistan. On February 26, 1981, Afghan Air Force pilot Captain Jamal ud Din defected with his crew to Pakistan on board a Mi-8T helicopter numbered 285, during post-maintenance flight test from Kandahar Air Base. On November 20, 1983, Captain Mohammed Nabi Korinzay defected to Pakistan with his Su-7BM fighter-bomber. The aircraft broke up during a crash landing on the runway at Dalbandin. On July 16, 1984, an Afghan Mi-25 helicopter defected and landed in Miranshah. On September 22, 1984, Colonel Haji Fakir, flying an An-26 defected from Afghanistan to Miranshah Air Base, Pakistan. On June 28, 1985, the crews of two Mi-24 Hind-Ds defected from Afghanistan to Pakistan. The helicopters were later transferred to the United States for evaluation, they were later returned and one of them is now at display in Khalid Aviation Base Quetta (Pakistan). On 23 October 1986, an Afghan Mig 21, piloted by Lt. Mohammed Daoud defected to Pakistan, landing at Kohat Air Base.Afghan Air Force Pilot Flies MIG-21 to Pakistani Base and Asks for Asylum On 3 October 1987, two Afghan Mil Mi-4 helicopters defected to Pakistan, landing in Chitral. Although the helicopters were returned to Afghanistan, the crews were granted political asylum. On December 8, 1988, Captain Asadullah flying a MiG-21 defected from Afghanistan to Miranshah Airfield, Pakistan. On July 3, 1989, Captain Mohammed Hamid flying a Mi-25 defected from Afghanistan to Kica Air Base, Pakistan. On July 6, 1989, Afghan Air Force Captain Jan Pahrand defected to Pakistan with his Su-22M-4K fighter-bomber.

Algeria On June 17, 1998, Captain Alili Messaoud flew his Mi-8 helicopter from Blida Air Force Base, southwest of Algiers, first to Formentera island and then to Ibiza, Spain, getting away from the Algerian Civil War (1992–2002). The helicopter was subsequently returned to Algeria while the pilot asked for political asylum that was not granted because of Algerian pressures, however he was granted a resident visa each year continuing to the present.

China

A number of defections occurred from the People's Republic of China, with most of its pilots defecting to the Republic of China (Taiwan). These include:

On January 12, 1960, the first PLA defection occurred. Yang Decai, a PLANAF pilot from the 4th Fighter Division flew a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 with serial number 6501 from Luqiao air base to Yilan County, Taiwan. However, Yang was killed when his aircraft crashed on landing. On September 15, 1961, PLAAF pilots Shao Xiyan and Gao Youzong flew an Antonov An-2 from Ji'ao county, Shandong to Jeju-do and reached Taiwan on October 7, 1961. Both pilots were personally interviewed by Chiang Kai-shek and rewarded 500 taels (approximately 25 kg) of gold. Both pilots served in the Republic of China Air Force and retired with ranks of colonel, and Shao eventually emigrated to the United States. On March 3, 1962, Liu Chengsi, a PLANAF pilot of the 8th squadron of the 3rd wing of the 16th regiment flew a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 from Luqiao air base in Zhejiang to Taoyuan County, Taiwan (now Taoyuan City). Liu was rewarded 1,000 taels (approximately 50 kg) of gold, and the position of deputy director of a Republic of China Air Force radio station. He was honorably discharged with a rank of colonel.

On November 11, 1965, Li Xianbin, a PLAAF captain of Ilyushin Il-28 of the 8th division flew his bomber numbered 0195 from Jianqiao air base in Hangzhou to Taoyuan County, Taiwan (now Taoyuan City); this was the first fully operational Il-28 in western hands. The radio operator / tail gunner Lian Baosheng was found dead at the scene and the navigator Li Caiwang was captured alive after a suicide attempt. Both survivors were honored and rewarded positions in the Republic of China Air Force. Li Xianbin was rewarded 2,000 taels (approximately 100 kg) of gold, while Li Caiwang was rewarded 1,000 taels (approximately 50 kg) of gold. Since Lian Baosheng was dead, his reward of 1,000 taels (approximately 50 kg) of gold was divided evenly among Li Xianbin and Li Caiwang. Li Xianbin made headlines in Taiwan years later when he demanded all of the rewards because of what he claimed was his unfair treatment by Taiwan. Li Xianbin claimed that he was the sole defector, and the other two were actually captured due to his defection, a fact that was later agreed by both Taiwan and the navigator Li Caiwang himself. Li Xianbin claimed that for the purpose of political propaganda, all the crew were honored as defectors, which was far from the truth, but he was not successful in getting all of the gold reward. After he was honorably discharged as colonel from the Republic of China Air Force, Li Xianbin obtained Canadian residency. He made headlines again in 1992 when he returned to China via Canada after he learned that his mother was about to die. After his return to Qingdao in October 1992, he was eventually arrested by the local Public Security Bureau when he was on his way to the airport for his return trip to Canada. Li Xianbin was first sentenced to 15 years but this was later reduced to 10, and the sentence was further reduced drastically because it was discovered that he had stomach cancer that was in its terminal stage. He was released early and died shortly after his release. Many elements of the Chinese democracy movement first accused the Chinese government of inhumanity for not allowing Li Xianbin to go back to China to visit his dying mother, and then accused the Chinese government of trying to repatriate him to either Taiwan or Canada because the regime did not want to foot the bill for his treatment, since he did not have his assets transferred to China. Li Caiwang, the navigator of the Il-28, was seriously wounded by Li Xianbin during the latter's defection and was forced to accept his fate after he survived his suicide attempt. During his stay in the hospital for the gunshot he received in the shoulder, the nurse who took care of him fell in love with him and told him that she was also responsible to perform surveillance on him, under the order of the Republic of China government. The two eventually married and moved into the nurse's home, but were still under constant surveillance: a major general of the Republic of China military had a son who was going to a school near the couple's home, so he rented a room at their residence for years to keep Li Caiwang under surveillance. Although the major general and his son finally moved out, Li Caiwang had no intention of staying in Taiwan, and since the wife's sister was married to an American, Li Caiwang and his wife immigrated to the United States in 1972 after his honorable discharge from the Republic of China Air Force as a colonel. The couple became naturalized citizens of the United States in 1979. In 1982, Chinese diplomats contacted Li Caiwang in the United States and got his side of the story, and after a prolonged investigation, the Chinese government rehabilitated him in 1984. After several visits to China in the 1990s, Li Caiwang eventually resettled in China in 1998. On July 7, 1977, Fan Yuanye, a PLAAF pilot flew his Shenyang J-6 numbered 3171 from Jinjiang to an air base in Tainan, and was rewarded a rank of lieutenant colonel in the Republic of China Air Force. After his honorable discharge from the Republic of China Air Force, Fan joined an investment firm with his money and obtained American green card, but he stayed primarily in Taiwan to handle his investments. On April 15, 1979, Yan Wenchang, a distinguished PLAAF pilot who earned numerous awards for his excellent performance in support of the Sino-Vietnamese War, was extremely bitter after learning that the promotion for the deputy squadron commissar was given to somebody else instead of him. Yan felt he was the better candidate and should get the promotion and he was under appreciated, and as a result, he decided to defect to Vietnam after learning that the opportunity would be gone because his unit would soon be redeployed to Hunan, and the only thing he left was a note to his wife that read:I'll be gone, good-bye forever!'''. However, Vietnam did not react at all to his attempts for contacts after his Shenyang J-6 entered Vietnam from Guangxi, and as result, Yan was killed after directly crashing into a 1,000 metre high mountains cliff approximately 80 km south of Haiphong. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Vietnam the next day that the incident was a navigational error and asked for the return of the remains of the pilot and the jet, but Vietnam refused, and instead, asked Soviet investigators to inspect the wreckage. KGB aviation experts discovered that the avionics of Yan's J-6 was extremely rudimentary even by Soviet standard, and was indeed lacking any effective navigational avionics. Furthermore, the communication on the J-6 was not encrypted, and it could be intercepted by advanced civilian radios on the market. Since Yan was a regular pilot that patrolled the airspace within the 10 km of the Sino-Vietnamese border (sometimes as frequent as 4 times a day), his defection was not detected until his crash. On August 7, 1983, Sun Tianqin, a former PLANAF pilot who had just transferred to PLAAF several months ago to become a test pilot, flew a J-7II numbered 045 from Dalian to Seoul Air Base in South Korea. Sun was rewarded a rank of colonel in the Republic of China Air Force and 7,000 taels (approximately 350 kg) of gold, the highest ever recorded. In January 1985, Sun married Li Tianhui, a Chinese musician who also defected to Taiwan, and the pair eventually immigrated to Canada after Sun's honorable discharge from the Republic of China Air Force. On November 14, 1983, Wang Xuecheng, a 25-year-old PLANAF squadron commander of the 2nd wing of the 18th regiment of the 6th division flew a Shenyang J-5 numbered 83065 from Daishan, Zhejiang to Taiwan, and under the escort of two F-5E's, successfully landed at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport. Wang was rewarded a rank of major in Republic of China Air Force and 3,000 taels (approximately 150 kg) of gold. After a divorce, Wang married a local Taiwanese woman and fathered two daughters and a son. Wang still talks to his family members in Henan via telephone, and refuses to immigrate abroad like most other Chinese defectors did. On August 25, 1985, a PLAAF deputy wing commander Xiao Tianrun, flew an Ilyushin Il-28 from Ji'ao county, Shandong to Iri (now Iksan), and during emergency landing in the field, the navigator Sun Wuchun was killed, along with a South Korean citizen on the ground. The radio operator / tail gunner Liu Shuyi refused to defect and South Korea returned him to China along with the ashes of Sun Wuchun. On September 20, 1985, Xiao reached Taiwan and was awarded 3,000 taels (approximately 150 kg) of gold and a rank of colonel in the Republic of China Air Force. Xiao Tianrun left two copies of his declaration against communism in China and requested one of the copies to be sent to Deng Xiaoping. Xiao was personally interviewed by Chiang Ching-kuo and appeared on the Republic of China national day celebration parade in October of the same year. Xiao later married Taiwanese TV reporter Chang Te-fung, who helped Xiao greatly in his investment in Taiwanese stock market, but the pair were eventually divorced.