“So you have to fighter jets in the area supposedly doing training and a lear jet supposedly chartered by the German military goes down.”
Maybe they were practicing intercepts on a dissimilar aircraft (smaller and slower) and they had an “oopsie,” or whatever that is in Hun-speak.
It could be...but they would already know it was part of the exercise.
Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Around the world, there are various contractors who provide electronic warfare training for military units, using specially-configured business jets. L-3 Communications is just one of several who offer this service:
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/lease-and-learn-l-3s-ew-training-aircraft-05378/
Not saying this was the case in Germany; the skies over Europe are extremely crowded, and this might have been an incident where the Lear stumbled into military airspace, or the Eurofighter got outside its MOA.
Limited flight space is one reason the Luftwaffe has spent millions on flight training in the U.S. They’ve had a presence at Holloman AFB, New Mexico for decades.