Boris Kovzan

Boris Ivanovich Kovzan (Russian: Борис Иванович Ковзан; 7 April 1922 – 31 August 1985) was a Soviet fighter pilot and the only person to have executed four confirmed aerial rammings, referred to as taran attacks in the Soviet Union. Kovzan was born in 1922 to a working-class family in Shakhty. After graduating from secondary school in Babruysk, Belarus he enlisted in the Red Army in 1939 and attended the Odessa Military Aviation School in Ukraine. In 1940 he was assigned to the 160th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Belarusian Special Military District. Shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Kovzan was deployed to the front. On 29 October 1941, he conducted his first aerial ramming as a junior lieutenant in the 42nd Fighter Aviation Regiment over Zagorsk. He rammed a German Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter that was conducting a reconnaissance mission over Soviet-controlled territory while flying a MiG-3 interceptor. That day, he had used up all he ammunition to shoot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 from a group of four and was forced to return to the airfield. While approaching the airfield he was based at, he noticed the reconnaissance plane and rammed it upward at an altitude of 5,000 metres (16,000 ft). Ramming enemy aircraft upward was an unusual technique, but Kovzan is not the only person to use it; notable pilots such as Amet-khan Sultan later used the technique.