Russian military jet almost collided with passenger plane after turning off transpond

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Russian military jet almost collided with passenger plane after turning off transponders

Second time this year nation's aircraft accused of turning off its transponders to avoid radar as it came close to hitting a plane over Sweden

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 14 December, 2014, 8:20pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 14 December, 2014, 8:27pm

Agencies in Stockholm



Russian fighter (right corner) close to Norwegian plane in an earlier incident. Russia has denied Swedish claims that a Russian military aircraft had nearly collided with a passenger jet over Sweden. Photo: AFP

For the second time this year, a Russian military aircraft turned off its transponders to avoid commercial radar and nearly collided with a passenger jet over Sweden - a charge denied by Moscow.

"This is serious. This is inappropriate. This is outright dangerous when you turn off the transponder," Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist said on Saturday.

Russia's defence ministry yesterday did not deny that its plane was in the area at the time of Friday's incident, but said that it was at a safe distance of more than 70 kilometres from the flight path of the passenger jet.

In recent months, Russia has increased its military presence in the Baltic Sea area, prompting some Swedish officials to compare it to the cold war.

In October, non-Nato Sweden launched its first submarine hunt since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Swedish authorities said a small, foreign submarine had entered its waters illegally but never found it and didn't disclose its nationality.

Nato has air patrols over the Baltic Sea and the continuous rotation of Nato military units in and out of countries such as the Baltic states and Poland.

Sweden's air force chief, Major General Micael Byden, said the aircraft's transponders, which make the plane visible to commercial radar, were shut off. Swedish fighter jets were sent up to identify the aircraft, and Hultqvist later identified it as a Russian intelligence plane.

Byden said the incident in international air space looked "pretty serious", adding the southern-bound commercial flight was immediately ordered to change course. Media in Sweden and Denmark said the commercial plane was en route to Poland, but no one identified the airline that was flying the jet or how many people it was carrying.

Byden said this was not as serious as the incident in March when a Russian plane flying without transponders came within 100 metres of Scandinavian Airlines plane that had taken off from Copenhagen.

Earlier this month a Norwegian warplane had a "near miss" with a Russian fighter jet north of Norway.

In an air force clip supplied by Norway's military, the Norwegian pilot shouts "What the hell!" before veering away sharply from the other jet, which Norway identified as a Russian MiG-31 that came to within 20 metres of the Norwegian F-16.

Poland's defence minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, warned on Thursday that in recent days there had been "unprecedented Russian activity from its Baltic fleet to flights over the Baltic Sea", and on Friday his counterpart in Estonia said a Russian plane had violated its airspace.

That same day, Sweden brought back the option of using reservists to boost its military force, citing "Russian rearmament" as one of the reasons for the decision.

Sweden, which has a long tradition of neutrality and remains outside Nato, has had an intense security debate in recent years, after a decade of military cutbacks and an uptick in Russian air force activity near its Baltic Sea air space.

The week-long hunt for a suspected Russian submarine in October led to an increased commitment to the country's military from the Social Democrat-led government, which took power in September.

Associated Press, Agence France-Presse





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