Posted on 04/11/2015 5:04:01 AM PDT by Paid_Russian_Troll
A Russia Su-27 jet fighter flew dangerously close and nearly collided with a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft this week in the latest aerial provocation by Moscow, defense officials revealed to the Washington Free Beacon.
The Su-27 conducted the close-in intercept of an RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, said officials. The incident prompted a diplomatic protest.
“On the morning of April 7th, a U.S. RC-135U flying a routine route in international airspace was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 Flanker in an unsafe and unprofessional manner,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez.
“The United States is raising this incident with Russia in the appropriate diplomatic and official channels,” she said in a statement.
A defense official said the Russian fighter jet flew within 20 feet of the unarmed reconnaissance jet in what the official called a “reckless” encounter that endangered the lives of the RC-135 crew.
No details were available regarding the mission of the RC-135, which was in a position to monitor Russian military activities in western Russia and Kaliningrad.
The RC-135 is a militarized and upgraded Boeing 707 jetliner that can be configured for several types of intelligence gathering, including photo, nuclear monitoring, and electronic spying.
The RC-135U variant involved in Tuesday’s near collision is code-named Combat Sent and conducts technical intelligence gathering on enemy electronic signals and radar emitters.
The monitoring comes amid new worries that Russia is deploying new short-range Iskander nuclear capable missiles in Kaliningrad and Russian-occupied Crimea in the Ukraine.
A second defense official said there have been no recent Russian aerial provocations near U.S. coasts. But Moscow is expected to ramp up its training operations flights around this time of year.
“That means we’re probably due for [aerial encounters] soon,” the official said.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
No, I suspect this person flew ON the RC135. There’s a few of us on the threads that did that. Those are memories we don’t soon forget.
“”Me and My RC” cold war Russian linguist bump.”
Memories of Monterey...
I guess that’s one way of putting it!!
Not Monterey for me. Lackland. All 47 weeks. Wish it had been CA but they wanted it back there for some reason.
Was originally slotted for Russian, then got switched to Korean after a month.
Went back later for the Russian short course.
I was an Arabic linguist. Most of the Russians were cross training to Serbo-Croatian during my time at Mildenhall. How times have changed.
Times have sure changed in 40 years!
In today's world, there's no way I'd turn my back on someone, drop my pants and bend over.
It might have been an insult back in the day, but these days I think it would be understood as more like an offer and an invitation.
And that is NOT the message I'd want to send!
Tried for Arabic, couldn’t get it. Korean was where the open slots were at that particular time, apparently.
I remember that incident. Didn’t the US government recover that lost aircraft and missile?
I’ll never be over Mucho Grande . . .
Brings back old days with China April 2001 and Spy Plane had to land on Military base in China.Chinese pilot died
Not tcrlaf
Active Duty ping.
The Soviet Union is back and Tsar Russia is claiming a lot more territory it seems
In my day, the Russian courses were taught at Syracuse. Albanian and some of the more esoteric tongues were taught at Indiana. Mandarin was taught at Berkeley. No language for me then; I ended up at Goodfellow in 1960.
They used to do that near Kennedy Space Center during the space shuttle era. IRRC, one launch had to be scrubbed and rescheduled because a large Russian "fishing boat" wandered inside the safety zone down range.
MI Ping
thank you. Cold War, Part 2
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