WASHINGTON — The Pentagon scrambled fighter jets to counter four Russian aircraft that approached but didn’t enter U.S. or Canadian airspace, in what officials described as a routine encounter unrelated to the series of unidentified objects shot down in recent days.
The four aircraft — which included Tu-95 Bear and Su-35 fighters — entered the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone on Monday but remained outside American and Canadian airspace, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement. Two F-16s intercepted them. An aircraft interception involves closely approaching a plane to warn it away.
“This Russian activity in the North American ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat, nor is the activity seen as provocative,” the statement said. “NORAD had anticipated this Russian activity and, as a result of our planning, was prepared to intercept it.”
The NORAD statement said the U.S. has tracked six to seven such incidents a year since Russia resumed what it called “out of area Long Range Aviation activity” in 2007. It emphasized that the incident had no connection to the Chinese balloon that was spotted over Alaska before heading across the continental U.S. earlier this month, or the decision to shoot down unidentified objects over Alaska, Canada and Michigan in recent days.
NORAD “assesses that this Russian flight activity is in no way related to recent NORAD and U.S. Northern Command operations associated with airborne objects over North America during the last two weeks,” the statement said.
