US European Command said Tuesday that a US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone collided with a Russian Su-27 fighter jet. The Russian Defense Ministry denied the idea that the aircraft came in contact and said the drone crashed into the water after making a sharp maneuver.
European Command said in a press release that two Russian Su-27 fighters intercepted the MQ-9. “At approximately 7:03 AM (CET), one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing US forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters,” the command said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the drone was flying with its transponders off over the Black Sea near Crimea in an area that was declared off-limits by Russia. It said Russian fighters were sent to intercept the MQ-9. The ministry said that “as a result of sharp maneuver, the US drone went into uncontrollable flight with a loss of altitude” and crashed into the water.
Gen. James B. Hecker, the commander of US Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, claimed the MQ-9 was conducting a “routine” flight and insisted the aircraft collided.
“Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9,” he said.
“In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash,” Hecker added.
The US and its allies conduct frequent surveillance flights in the Black Sea, sometimes close to Russian territory. The White House said the US will continue to operate in the Black Sea despite the risk of significantly escalating tensions with Moscow.
“We’re going to continue to fly and operate in international airspace over international waters. The Black Sea belongs to no one nation, and we are going to continue to do what we need to do for our own national security interests in that part of the world,” said White House National Security Advisor John Kirby.
Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said Moscow views the incident as a “provocation” but indicated Russia doesn’t plan to escalate the situation. “As for us, we do not want any confrontation between the United States and Russia. We are in favor of building pragmatic relations for the benefit of the Russian and American peoples,” he said after being summoned by the US State Department.
US conducts routine operations world-wide?
The ultimate peeping tom. Paranoia strikes deep.
The ultimate peeping tom. Paranoia strikes deep.
” . . . this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash,” Hecker added.”
That drone is a drop in the bucket compared to what Biden left in Afghanistan. I realize this has political implications, but when you’re PUSHING a war and you get damaged by it, don’t cry to me!
The target crashed and the jet that crashed it didn’t.
Sounds kind of “professional” to me…..
But Washington real forte is fiction.
BTW like your handle.
I read a lot of foreign news sites.
Thank gawd for Google translate….
Fiction is not a sole American trait but seems to be the forte of all.
It is darn hard to find muckrackers who want to share it all anymore…..
Yes, Google works if you already pretty familiar with the subject; but, it’s basically been Johnson’s Russia List for me. I need a selection of the spectrum, otherwise it gets obsessive.
Dont fear the Reaper, just clip his prrrroooops…
😂
You get nosy, you get slapped. Any use of US military hardware under US control is fair game in the black sea. To the idiots who are behind the mission: deal with it, Aholes.
Only America would launch aggressive military actions in someone else’s waters and then blame the natives for defending themselves. In this insane imperial alternate universe, America has the right to every square inch of the globe and everyone else has the right to tolerate their global aggression with their hands in their pockets. The last time Russia pulled something like this it triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis, but we pull the same sh*t and Russia does nothing. Who is the alpha tyrant here? How many drones does Putin have in the Gulf of Mexico right now? What is Russian for go f**k yourself?
the drone is remote controlled from probably far away which means there is a delay in the signal from the controller to the drone. i believe that any collision between it and an actual fighter jet would be the drone operator’s fault
On purpose? To agitate the Russian pilots?
The MQ-9 is capable of autonomous flight. But you’re probably right.
They do control drones over the ME region from Ramstein AB in Germany.
Nord Stream, then future closure of the entrance to the Marbara Sea? Keep the Russian fleet bottled up? We ARE preparing for the Big One.
USA is looking for a war. What else? What possible good reason can the United States have for running a lethal ‘US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone’ over contested Ukraine / Russian / etc airspace in the *Black Sea* ? The US seems to be surrounding both Chinese and Russian hotspots with USA presence: to what end? It is not to, unlike Chinese geopolitical moves, not to bring peace.
It’s obvious america is being aggressive, but just because america is the “bad guys” doesn’t mean china is the “peaceful good guys”. China isn’t out for peace. The difference between america and china is capacity, not intent.
China is out for Business which is why it also is out for Peace. Absolutely. It is the USA / UK etc out for war. They think it will pickup their economies, plus, much worse than ‘bad guys’. e.g. Biden criminal for ordering Nord Stream blown up. USA wants war, not China. Not Russia: USA wants war
“Unprofessional”?
The drone is down and crashed but Boris’s jet didn’t and flew home for some borst and vodka to celebrate.
Sounds kind of “professional” to me.
Perhaps Boris misgendered someone during the mission?
That would deserve the unprofessional label according to our military…..
Not following international air traffic rules, then causing a drone to go down then go home to drink vodka, yes, that’s the meaning of Professional in Russia. It’s why they can’t even take Donbass a year later.
International rules….no one should ever go against those….
Haha. Appears that bringing down a hi-end Amerikan drone is a lot cheaper than bringing down a Chinese weather balloon.
An F-35 would have been brought down by the drone.
As there are two different explanations what happened, we may only guess.
And all they had to do was to p*ss on the little drone. That is what happens when the little dog gets in the way of the bigger dog.
Now the payback for Biden destroying NordStream will start. Guess Russia has grown a set!!
To quote late actor Leslie Nielsen from a Mel Brooks movie: “they had it coming.”
I like how the US claims it is for their “…own national security interests in that part of the world…” when their national borders are thousands of miles away!!! Whose security is being threatened here?
Its allies.
The USA is the biggest enemy of its allies, see Germany and EU.
Actually, I think it is funny, the Russian jet pi**ed on the US drone.
You mean their proxies! Still has nothing to do with “national security”. The US seems to be beating the war drums all over the world at the moment. It’s time to stop our wilful blindness and see through the haze of empire propaganda, before they lead us off a nuclear cliff.
The Pentagon spy drone was flying with its transponder turned off, against the rules between the two countries, so Jimmy Hecker should just shut up.
Conducting “routine surveillance”. Oh then it was a spy drone? Us hubris looks sillier and sillier
My, from the level of outrage I thought the incident occured off San Diego coast.
Without transponder turned on? Asking for it. This is why Rusdia forced it down.
Like Russian ships and planes don’t do the same sometimes in international waters.
Why are we flying our drones all the way over at the Black Sea? We shot down a bunch of BALLOONS that drifted over year? You don’t think Russia will shoot down our drones?
The Pentagon would not hesitate to shoot down Russian drones over the Gulf of Mexico.
Was the American drone named the Maddox by any chance?
I liove how the story gets embellished over time. First, drone was forced down by Russian plane, Than, Rusdian plane hot irs propeller, endangering both! Than, more imaginative, Russian olane dumped fuel on
the drone! Niw why would that be necessary? Just to say Russians are stupid, do not care about environment?
Or to cover up the fact that drone operators made a mistake , initiating a maneuver that sent it into uncontrolablke descent. They were aftaid that Russia was attempting to take over drone electronically and force it to land on Russian soil. This could have resulted in a decision to attempt risky maneuver.
Reaper Tipping
The Russian pilots must be old farm boys familiar with tipping over cows to have some fun. Any physical contact between the two air craft would have surely have been fatal for both aircraft but the Russian jets RTB and landed.
“Reaper tipping” does not involve physical contact and obviously totally confused and confounded the US drone flight controller stationed in some far away USAF base in AmerIca.
Anyway, the Russians don’t have to worry any more about that Reaper Drone snooping around Sevastapol anymore. Who wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall as the US Drone controller has to explain to their superiors how he/she lost control of their multi million $D Reaper to some Russian cowboys
“US Drone Crashes in Black Sea After Encounter With Russian Fighters Russia’s Defense Ministry denied US claims that the MQ-9 Reaper drone collided with a Russian Su-27 fighter jet”
What would America do if the Russians were flying drones and aircraft over Lake Michigan or the Gulf of Mexico near the US mainland?
America is even flying B-52 aircraft over the Baltic and the areas of Lithuania. Insane America trolling for World War 3.
Hypothesis (ENTIRELY hypothesis, since I have no access to secret information from the US DoD or Russian MoD):
It was neither a “collision” nor an unintentional crash due to a “sharp maneuver.”
The Russians tested some kind of electronic warfare solution versus US drones, and that solution had an effect.
Neither side would have any reason to publicly admit that’s what happened, if that’s what happened.
Plausible and worth exploring but electronic warfare doesn’t involve close distance. To disable a drone doesn’t take much as they are not equipped to prevent electronic nor kinetic attacks. In regular warfare they are employed once air superiority is established. I think this is more stupidity than anything else.
But again, you got a valid hypothesis.
Well, let me expand on the hypothesis:
Countries (especially the US and Russia) constantly probe and test their adversaries’ equipment and tactics.
And, after rounds of probing and testing, they improve their measures and countermeasures.
And they try to keep each other wondering “what does he have that I don’t have? What countermeasures to what I have does he have that I don’t know about?”
So it could be as simple as:
“Here’s this new black box we’ve developed that will easily fit in your plane’s cockpit and SHOULD, if it works like we think it will, let you disable/disrupt a Reaper’s flight control system along line of sight — if you can visually acquire the drone, you can send it spinning out of control with the press of a button. Hey, go see if it works! If it doesn’t, back to the drawing board. If it does, we watch to see how long it takes them to figure out what happened, then on to the next round.”
Of course, it could have been something else. I’m agnostic on the question. Just throwing that possibility into the mix.
Entirely plausible. Lots of things you could do to bring a drone down. Maybe someday we’ll find out what happened.
The CIA talking pointers forgot to mention the heroic actions of our drone? It takes courage to face two Russian jets so close to Crimea by yourself, folks! …What’s that? The drone is flown remotely without a pilot on board? Oopsie. Erase. Erase. (Sarcasm alert)
It slipped on a banana peel in the sky!
Key words here is International Waters. This drones have been flying the same pattern for a while and you can even track it on open source.
This was in my opinion an intentional hit by the Russia pilots or poor flying skills by the same. Regardless, this interception was directed from the Kremlin as there is very little delegation of authority within the Russian Armed Forces.
I guess we’ll find out. The Pentagon is probably waiting on all the excuses/statements by the kremlin before they release the tapes/videos.
Key word. UNCLOS — the one US is not signatory to. So, just ignore EEZ, fly over it, Not only that it should have transpinder on — but being a military asset passing through EEZ it should have requested “innocent right of passage”. And while simplistic stories work for domestic audience, the rest of the world is not infantile, Most likely explanation is — afraid that drone could be commandeered electronically and forced down. Crashing it looked like a better optiom.
True story bro, the US MOD would never lie to us.
I heard that the Russian pilots dumped fuel onto the drone. This fuel may have entered into the large, air intake on top of the MQ-9 – thus stalling the engine. Which may have caused the crash.
Your plane hits the propeller of a drone and breaks it. How? With which part of your plane? Wingtip?
💢🚨 Russian fighter jet struck down a USAF MQ-9 reaper drone over the Black Sea — U.S. European Command
“Our
MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in int’l airspace when
it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash
and complete loss of the MQ-9´,” says USAF Gen. James Hecker.
The US complains about the reckless ‘unprofessional’, ‘unsafe’, and “environmentally unsound” actions of the Russian pilot.
🔹 Who is James Hecker, our 2nd grade teacher ? 😂
This WOKE retard James Hecker, our 2nd grade teacher,
will fit in very well with Mr. Milley Vanelley, “I want to understand
white rage” and the rest of the Environmental, Social, Governance – ESG
trash in the Washington!
So what would America do if Russia flew a drone over Lake Ontario or China floated a balloon over American airspace while providing targeting data to a third country the US was at war with and was being attacked by?
All the Su-27 had to do is tip the wing of the drone with his wing and it would crash anyway!
As for environmentally unsound actions; do you know how much JP-5 jet fuel we use to dump over the ocean at the
end of every fiscal year in the 1970s and 1980s?
Many air wings would launch aircraft from the aircraft carrier and these jets would dump fuel only to return and do it again. The wing commander didn’t want to show an excess of fuel remaining for fear of not getting at least that much in the next year. “Use It or Lose It”
mentality.
I’m curious what did Sukhoi fighter actually do to Pentagon drone. Got in front of it and hit the afterburner?
Radio interference
It’s a good theory but the drone most likely have an autonomous ‘return home’ program. EW would not be enough to cause it to crash. It is possible this was a strictly political move to put more pressure on Washington.
So basically two possible motives. First, EW was ineffective and Russians needed more data on drone operation. Second, it was effective but not enough to deter Pentagon from spying and Russians needed infopolitacal component.
Or Russia just got bored with the whole thing.
The claim that the Sukhoi clipped the propeller is not plausible as the propeller is “embraced” by two rudders.
It could have been shot down and nobody is saying anything so as not to exacerbate tensions.
As far as international waters? Heck, to get to it, the drone had to fly over airspace of 3 or 4 nations
It is amazing that exuses are needed to explain crash. Had the Russia’s plane struck the drone, it would have suffered damage. It makes more sense that the operators tried evasive maneuvers, and lost control.