Iranian plane, intercepted over Romania

An Iranian plane was intercepted in Romanian airspace. It was detected by Typfoon jets, marking the first foray into the theater of operations on NATO’s eastern border. At the same time, a Pentagon drone was spotted over the Black Sea.

An Iranian plane, detected in Romania’s airspace

On Monday, a Ukrainian government plane ignored the Russian Air Force and headed for the Balkans. The aircraft, operated by Kiev, a twin-engine firefighting An-32 of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, made an unprecedented flight during the war. The aircraft crossed Hungarian airspace and landed at the Zagreb airfield in Croatia.

As the Ukrainian plane flew near the Ukraine-Hungary border, NATO air operations coordinators mobilized at least three Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets. The two British and Ukrainian aircraft were only 50 kilometers away from each other. Launched from Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport, the two British planes accelerated to a speed of over 500 knots.

Air alert

According to open-source data, the British fighter jets had the callsigns RRR96661 and Ascot 963. They followed the flight path of an Iran Airways civilian plane, an Airbus A330-243. The aircraft had the call sign IRA772 and was flying on a regular route between Tehran and Hamburg.

According to FlightAware, Iran’s aircraft reached an altitude of approximately 11,500 meters. It flew without incident from Iran to Turkey, passing through Bulgaria, Romania and eastern Hungary.

Iranian plane intercepted in Romanian airspace

In addition to the Iranian aircraft, a spy drone was detected over the Black Sea. The Air Force conducted the operation in the Russian-Ukrainian theater of war on Monday.

They used a Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton maritime spy drone. Over the past two days, the Pentagon has conducted hundreds of flights over the Black Sea using a land-based version of the drone.