On the morning of 24 September 1958, a flight of Nationalist Chinese F-86 Sabres was climbing over the Taiwan Strait when a formation of Communist MiG-17s slid past — a little higher and, on paper, the better aircraft. Then the Sabres did something no fighter had ever done in anger. They fired missiles.
Trailing white smoke, the little heat-seekers chased the MiGs through their turns and detonated. In the space of a few minutes the world had its first air-to-air guided-missile kills, and air combat changed forever. The weapon was the American AIM-9 Sidewinder, and its debut over the strait would echo in a way nobody in either cockpit could have imagined.
Because a few days later, one of those Sidewinders buried itself in a MiG-17 without going off — and handed the Soviet Union a free masterclass in missile design.
• Event: first combat use of air-to-air guided missiles
• Date & place: 24 September 1958, Taiwan Strait (Second Taiwan Strait Crisis)
• Combatants: ROCAF F-86F Sabres with US-supplied AIM-9B Sidewinders vs PLAAF MiG-17s
• Result: multiple MiG-17s downed by Sidewinders — the first missile kills in history
• The twist: on 28 September an unexploded Sidewinder lodged in a MiG-17 and was recovered intact
• Legacy: reverse-engineered into the Soviet Vympel K-13 (NATO: AA-2 Atoll), in service by 1960; Chinese PL-2
• Designer: William B. McLean, US Naval Ordnance Test Station, China Lake — roughly 24 moving parts
A cheap little snake with a hot eye
The Sidewinder was the pet project of William B. McLean, a physicist at the Navy’s China Lake test station in the California desert. While rival teams built big, complex, radar-guided missiles, McLean chased the opposite ideal: a weapon that homed on the heat of an enemy’s exhaust, with almost nothing to break. The result had barely two dozen moving parts and a gas generator instead of batteries. It was so simple that skeptics inside the Navy doubted it would even work.
The first kills of the missile age
When the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis flared in 1958, Washington rushed a few dozen Sidewinders to Taiwan and sent a US team to bolt them onto the ROCAF’s Sabres. The MiG-17 could out-climb the F-86, so the Nationalist pilots had spent months being bounced from above. The missile flipped the maths. On 24 September, the Sabres let the MiGs cruise past and then fired — and the heat-seekers ran them down. It was the first time in history a guided missile had killed an aircraft in combat.
The dud that armed the enemy
Then came the twist no war planner scripts. On 28 September, in another clash, a Sidewinder slammed into a MiG-17 and simply failed to detonate. The Chinese pilot nursed his jet home with a live American missile embedded in the airframe. Ground crews carefully extracted it — and once Moscow learned China had an intact Sidewinder, it pressed hard to get its hands on the prize.
What the Soviets received was, in effect, a finished blueprint. Their engineers copied the infrared seeker, the steering and the stabilisation and produced the Vympel K-13 — NATO codename AA-2 “Atoll” — which entered service around 1960. China built its own version as the PL-2. For decades, MiGs and their copies flew into battle carrying near-clones of the very missile once fired at them.
The weapon that never really left
More than sixty years on, the Sidewinder still serves on the front line in its latest AIM-9X form, and its Soviet and Chinese offspring soldiered on for generations. Few weapons can claim to have opened an entire era of warfare on their first day in combat — and fewer still can claim to have armed both sides of the Cold War at once. It began with a handful of cheap, desert-built snakes fired over a narrow strip of contested water in 1958.
Sources: Wikipedia (AIM-9 Sidewinder; K-13 missile; Second Taiwan Strait Crisis); The War Zone (TWZ); National Air and Space Museum; contemporary accounts. Kill totals for the 1958 crisis vary between sources and are given as reported.
Related Questions
When was the first air-to-air missile kill in history?
The first air-to-air guided-missile kills in history took place on 24 September 1958 over the Taiwan Strait, during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. Nationalist Chinese (ROCAF) F-86F Sabres fired US-supplied AIM-9B Sidewinder missiles at Communist Chinese MiG-17s and shot several down — the first time a guided missile had ever destroyed an aircraft in combat.
What was the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile?
The AIM-9 Sidewinder is an American infrared-guided (heat-seeking) air-to-air missile developed by physicist William B. McLean at the US Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake, California. Deliberately simple — the early AIM-9B had roughly two dozen moving parts — it scored the first missile kills in history in 1958 and still serves today in its AIM-9X form.
How did the Soviet Union get the Sidewinder missile?
On 28 September 1958, during the Taiwan Strait clashes, a Sidewinder struck a Communist Chinese MiG-17 but failed to detonate. The pilot flew home with the live missile embedded in his airframe, ground crews extracted it intact, and Moscow pressed China to hand over the prize — giving Soviet engineers a complete, working example of America's newest weapon.
What was the Soviet K-13 (AA-2 Atoll) missile?
The Vympel K-13, NATO codename AA-2 Atoll, was the Soviet Union's reverse-engineered copy of the American AIM-9B Sidewinder. Built from an unexploded Sidewinder recovered from a MiG-17 in 1958, it copied the infrared seeker, steering, and stabilisation, and entered service around 1960. China produced its own version as the PL-2.
Who invented the Sidewinder missile?
The Sidewinder was invented by William B. McLean, a physicist at the US Navy's China Lake test station in the California desert. While rival teams built large, complex radar-guided missiles, McLean pursued a cheap heat-seeking weapon with almost nothing to break — his design philosophy was “simple, reliable, and inexpensive.”
Why did F-86 Sabres carry missiles over the Taiwan Strait in 1958?
When the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis flared in 1958, the PLAAF's MiG-17s could out-climb Taiwan's F-86F Sabres, so Nationalist pilots kept getting bounced from above. Washington rushed a few dozen AIM-9B Sidewinders to Taiwan with a US team to fit them, letting the Sabres kill from below — a story echoed across decades of military aviation history.
Is the Sidewinder missile still in use today?
Yes. More than sixty years after its 1958 combat debut, the Sidewinder remains front-line armament in its latest AIM-9X version. Its Soviet and Chinese derivatives — the K-13/AA-2 Atoll and PL-2 — also served for generations, meaning both sides of the Cold War flew missiles descended from the same China Lake design, as US pilots learned flying secret captured MiGs.
What was the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis?
The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis was a 1958 confrontation between Communist China (PRC) and Nationalist China (Taiwan/ROC), backed by the United States, over the Taiwan Strait and offshore islands. Its air battles between ROCAF F-86 Sabres and PLAAF MiG-17s produced the world's first air-to-air guided-missile kills in September 1958.
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