A pair of US fighter pilots have detailed the “tense” encounter with Syrian combat jets in Syrian airspace last week, an incident which was tense primarily because they were in a country that hasn’t approved of their presence hassling military aircraft that actually belong there.
I followed him around for all three of his loops,” one of the pilots reported, adding “he didn’t appear to have any idea I was there.” The pilots, added they were in “perfect position” to shoot down the apparently unaware Syrians, and just needed orders to do so.
The order to shoot the Syrian planes down never came, because the planes appeared to just be flying through the area. The US has since warned the Syrian planes to stay out of that part of Syria, though they insist this is not a “no-fly zone.”
While it’s still not clear that the Syrian pilots ever knew they were being “confronted” militarily, Brig. Gen. Charles Corcoran insisted that the fact that the Syrian planes left the area proved “we made our point.”
Apparently our Generals are unaware of the UN Charter or the concept of national sovereignty. Can you imagine what our Government and media would be saying if Syrian military aircraft entered US airspace without our Government’s permission and engaged US military aircraft? And did so in support of armed insurgent groups attacking our Government? The people who govern us have gone from outrageous to insane.
They’ve been insane for quite some time now, I think.
I don’t understand what the big deal is the USA is there trying to fight ISIS it’s not like we’re in Syria trying to prop up a Shiite dictator who’s slaughtering it’s own people.We’re there just trying to fight terrorists!!! Same as Russia wink wink….USA
Syria uses the old Soviet methods. The pilots are heavily dependent on ground control, and not especially aware unless told of other aircraft. Their vision is poor, and they don’t have warning radars that could pick up a stealth F-22. That hardly matters to them, since they are not trained to and don’t expect to do it on their own.
So the US point would have been made if seen by ground control and/or air defense. The Russian S-400 air defense radars probably knew all about it, which was enough.
F-22 raptors are radar evading aircraft Syria’s military will find that out the hard way if they bomb a position the U.S.special operators are stationed in…
Empire builder that you be, how about we show some sanity by a touch of humility?
For Russia sacrificed 27 million troops in World War Two, which allowed millions of our troops to come home alive. For Russia is fed up with our Empire expansion and any US fighter-jet that kills a Russian or Syrian pilot, most likely it will be either blown out of the sky or find no place to land but a smoking, burning, bombed out runway. And as Turkey is about to evict US fighter-jets from it’s air space, all the more reason is there for our pilots to not be so kill crazy as you suggest.