The close encounter between the Russian Su-27 and the U.S. RC-135 caused operators of the American aircraft to temporarily lose control. (Photo : Twitter Photo Section)
Pentagon calls Black Sea aerial provocation ‘unsafe and unprofessional’.
A Russian Su-27 jet fighter came within 20 feet of a U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea on Monday in Moscow’s latest military provocation involving dangerous aerial encounters.
“On Jan. 25 an RC-135 aircraft flying a routine route in international airspace over the Black Sea was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 in an unsafe and unprofessional manner,” Navy Capt. Daniel Hernandez, chief spokesman for the U.S. European Command, told the Washington Free Beacon. “We are looking into the issue.”
Defense officials said the Su-27 flew alongside the RC-135, an electronic intelligence-gathering aircraft, and then performed what they said was an aggressive banking turn away from the intelligence jet.
The thrust from the Su-27 “disturbed the controllability” of the RC-135, said one official familiar with details of the incident.
Read more ....
Update: Russian Fighter Intercepts U.S. Recon Jet Over Black Sea (HNGN)
WNU Editor: If history is any indication .... these encounters .... if continued .... will end up badly.
WNU Editor--
ReplyDeleteHow in history have these encounters, if continued, ended up badly?
Don,
DeleteThe Chinses J-8 collision with a US ELINT aircraft which resulted in 1 death and could have resulted in many more.
There is a level of testosterone jockeying on all sides that can lead to collisions and deaths.
Don,
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-to-air_combat_losses_between_the_Soviet_Union_and_the_United_States
But Wikipedia is incomplete. I posted about a year ago a story on a group of U.S. and Russian historians who tabulated U.S. - Soviet casualties during the Cold War. They had a tally that was in the low thousands from air, sea, and ground confrontations. Unfortunately, the trouble with having 70,000 posts in this blog is that when I want to find that story .... I cannot. My custom made search engine in the top left corder can only do so much. Grrrr....
WNU Editor,
DeleteThere's a couple Cold War site that documents shootdowns,
http://myplace.frontier.com/~anneled/ColdWar.html
Most of the Cold War shootdowns however, involved USAF, USN, NATO and "Covert" aircraft entering into "Communist" airspace and even overflying "Communist" territory.
As "Communist" air defences improved, the Cold War "intrusion" flights were eventually "stopped", due to losses, and the "spy flights" were limited to skirting along the edge of of "Communist" airspace and the emerging satellites took over the "over flight" tasks.
The danger today is the heightened "verbal" conflict allied with excess levels of testosterone will result in avoidable collisions.
WNU,
ReplyDelete"low thousands" try mid thousands.