Assadollah Adeli

Assadollah Adeli is an Iranian retired fighter pilot on the Grumman [F-14 Tomcat] who served during the Iran–Iraq War. He was an elite pilot in the Islamic [Republic of Iran Air Force|Iranian Air Force], and in 1977 he was one of the few pilots in the Iranian Air Force">Iran">Iranian Air Force who were selected to fly the F-14. He flew the aircraft between 1980 and 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war.
French military historian Pierre Razoux has credited him with five aerial victories, a record that qualifies him as a flying ace. Together with his radar intercept officer Mohammad Masbuq, they hold the record for shooting down three aircraft with one single missile. This took place on 7 January 1981, when they shot down three MiG-23 fighter aircraft of the Iraqi Air Force that were flying in a close formation at around 2,000 feet over Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf. They shot them down with one AIM-54 Phoenix missile, hitting the one in the middle and damaging the other two from the explosion. Cooper and Bishop list the three MiG-23s among confirmed kills by Iranians, without being able to identify the pilots.