WARSAW (Reuters) – A Polish border guard aircraft on patrol for the European Union’s border agency Frontex over the Black Sea near Romania narrowly avoided a collision with a Russian fighter jet on Friday, Romania and Poland said.
A Russian SU-35 jet carried out “aggressive and dangerous manoeuvres” approaching the Polish aircraft without keeping a secure distance, leading to turbulence, loss of altitude and a temporary loss of control of the plane by the Polish crew, Anna Michalska, a border guard spokesperson, wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
“The Russian jet flew just in front of the nose of the Polish plane, crossing its trajectory at a dangerous distance, estimated by the crew at about five metres,” Michalska said.
After three approaches the Russian jet flew away, Michalska added. The incident took place in international airspace.
The Romanian Defence Ministry said in a press release that the Russian jet’s behaviour was completely unacceptable.
“This incident is a further proof of the provocative approach of the Russian Federation in the Black Sea,” the ministry said.
Two combat aircraft belonging to the Romanian Air Force and two from the Spanish Air Force designated for Air Police missions were alerted by the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre in Torrejon, Spain. While the four aircraft were ready to intervene at any moment, their intervention proved unnecessary, the ministry said.
“It looks like a planned provocation by Russia, the crew acted responsibly and luckily nothing happened. We can see that Russia is trying to draw international attention by such provocations,” Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller told private television Polsat News on Sunday.
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
