Ballsy decision by the Soviet Colonel not to respond.
One day in autumn 1983, I bunked off school to sit in the back of a PA28 piloted by a friend of my dad's who was a civvie QFI. We were on the apron at Liverpool when a USAF C130 arrived.
In those days you could wander over and chat to the crew which we duly did. My dad's mate asked if they'd diverted into LPL but they replied that it was a planned stop as part of a NATO exercise. They'd flown in direct from Dover AFB in the 'States to practice collecting cargo from non-familiar European Civilian Airports and delivering it to other non-familiar European Civilian Airports.
After gorging themselves on mugs of tea (we insisted they tried it as we told them the coffee was crap), Bacon Barm's and asking some of the locals if they knew any of The Beatles, they invited us onto the flight deck while they started their prep'.
The aircraft commander was a Major and gave me a unit patch, unit baseball cap and a signed photograph of the aircraft from "The Crew of Fargo 11 on Exercise Able Archer- Tonto's first trip to Europe"
They left 90 mins after landing for some airfield in West Germany.