An unidentified small plane arriving from Hungary passed through the western part of Romania’s airspace on Wednesday night, and two fighters of the US Air Force were alerted to its capture, the Romanian Ministry of Defense said.
The low-flying, Beechcraft twin-engine plane took off in the Debrecen area without a permit, at 5.30 pm Eastern European time, and eight minutes later it was intercepted by the Hungarian Gripen, but the small plane did not respond to radio calls or visual signals. An unidentified plane flying with a transponder switched off entered Romanian airspace at 17.49 in the Oradea area, and at 17.58 two F-16 fighters of the US Air Force patrolling Romanian airspace were tracked down.
According to the Romanian Ministry of Defense (MAPN), the small aircraft did not behave in a dangerous or hostile manner, but still did not respond to the internationally used radio and visual signals of the fighter aircraft sent for interception. The plane continued its journey towards Caransebes – Szörvényvár, it also touched Serbian airspace for two minutes around 7 pm, then flew over to Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the two American fighter jets returned to the air base in Fetesti, and two Romanian F-16s took over the target.
According to the MAPN, Bulgarian authorities began a ground search on Wednesday night in the area where the radars last detected the unidentified aircraft.
pestinap.hu
