Washington. December 6th. INTERFAX - The US military does not consider the actions of its reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea risky, because of which a Russian civilian aircraft was forced to change course, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
"There was no such risk," he said at a briefing in Washington.
According to Kirby, "the problem was easily solved using common sense, routine contacts with dispatch services."
On Saturday, it became known that a civilian plane from Tel Aviv had to change course over the Black Sea to avoid a dangerous approach with a foreign reconnaissance aircraft.
As a source in the air traffic control services told Interfax, on December 3, one of the two reconnaissance planes over the Black Sea randomly crossed the established routes of civil aviation and approached the passenger Airbus Tel Aviv - Moscow. "The crew reported the triggering of an alarm about a dangerous approach. The vertical distance between the planes was less than 20 meters. The dispatchers gave the command to the civilian aircraft to descend 500 meters and take a safer echelon," the source said.
The intruder aircraft did not respond to requests from the ground.
On Friday, it was reported that the Russian military lifted Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets into the air to escort two US reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea.
The crews of Russian fighter jets identified air targets as the RC-135 strategic reconnaissance aircraft of the US Air Force and the CL-600 Artemis reconnaissance and targeting aircraft of the US Ground Forces, and escorted them over the Black Sea. According to the military, after the turn of foreign aircraft from the border, the fighters safely returned to the home airfield.
According to the Russian military, American planes approaching the state border of the Russian Federation were detected by Russian means of airspace control over the neutral waters of the Black Sea.
In turn, Aeroflot confirmed that the plane from Tel Aviv had to change course due to the intersection of the trajectory with another side.
