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While the Russian Knights were on the way home from an airshow in Langkawi, Malaysia, in December 1995, three Su-27s, one with two pilots on board, flew into the ground near the Russian Naval Aviation Base at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam. All four pilots, Colonel Boris Grigoriev, and Majors Aleksander Syrovoi, Nikolai Kordukov and Nikolai Gretchanov, were killed.

The accident was not widely reported in the West. Five Su-27s had been transiting in formation with their Il-76 transport aircraft: three on the starboard wing and two on the port wing. In the descent from high level the formation had to descend through cloud although the base weather at Cam Ranh Bay was not particularly bad. The Su-27s had no navigation aids on board: they had to rely on the Il-76 putting them overhead the field below cloud so that they could make a visual circuit to land. There was no radar at the airfield; the only serviceable aid on the ground was the ILS middle marker radio beacon, part of the Instrument Landing System which is only of any real value when the aircraft is on final approach to a landing.

When the captain of the Il-76 judged he was over the airfield he led the formation into a starboard turn to lose height and break cloud. Unfortunately, for reasons which never became clear, the formation was actually 28 kms from the airfield and the starboard turn put high ground between the aircraft and the runway. During that fateful descent, one after the other in quick succession the two outermost aircraft on the starboard wing struck the ground. The pilot of the third aircraft on the starboard side, the one nearest the Il-76, was heard on the radio starting to say 'Eject' but he never got past the first syllable before he also crashed into the ground. At that point the huge Il-76 rolled out of the turn and initiated a maximum rate climb; its starboard wing tip could have been no more than one or two metres from the ground. Lichkun and Kovalskiy, the pilots of the two Su-27s in very close formation on the port wing, broke out of the formation in a steep left hand climbing turn. Knowing that the three aircraft on the other side had almost certainly hit the ground and with the Il-76 suddenly rolling towards them and pitching up into a steep climb whilst still in cloud, the two remaining Su-27 pilots needed every ounce of their skill to retain control of their aircraft and not become totally and fatally disorientated. Lesser pilots may well have collided with the transport aircraft, leading to the total destruction of every aircraft in the formation.

Fortunately Lichkun and Kovalskiy gained sight of the ground almost immediately and landed, in a state of considerable shock, a few minutes later at the first airfield they saw. This turned out to be a civil airport, where they were promptly arrested by Vietnamese officials for landing without permission. They were held in custody for 36 hours.