RUSSIAN AIR FORCE PLANES MISBEHAVE OVER LITHUANIA, ESTONIA
At 15:20 local time in good flying weather on September 15, a Russian air force Su-27 fighter jet crashed into a field in western Lithuania. The plane was part of a convoy of seven fighter jets (Mig-29 and Su-27) and an A-50 radar plane en route over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea from Russia's Leningrad region to the Chernyakhovsk air base in Kaliningrad region. Earlier in the day, the convoy had crossed Estonia's flight information area with signals switched off, thus jeopardizing flight safety there.
The plane strayed almost 200 kilometers from the prescribed route, which passed approximately 20 kilometers off Lithuania's Baltic shore (just over the 12-mile limit of territorial waters). The crash site is located approximately 170 kilometers inland. The pilot, Major Valery Troyanov, ejected safely and is being held for questioning by the Lithuanian Prosecutor-General's Office in for the duration of investigations into the incident.
For two days, Russia's ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs were claiming -- as did the pilot initially -- that the plane was unarmed. On September 17, however, the Lithuanians found that the plane was armed as if for a wartime operation. They recovered the flight recorder (black box) as well as two air-to-air missiles and the machine gun with its ammunition box from the plane's wreckage. They are looking for the other two missiles that the Russian side now admits the plane was carrying and might possibly have dropped elsewhere before crashing. Most of the plane's fuselage is buried 4 to 5 meters deep in the ground and must be recovered manually for fear of explosives inside.
The pilot and Moscow blame the incident on a malfunction of the plane's navigation equipment, which caused the pilot to lose orientation and eventually to crash land when his fuel ran out. The plane's identification friend-or-foe (IFF) system self-destroyed while in flight, as it is programmed to do in the event of a failure of navigation equipment. Further, according to this version, the Russian pilot could not contact Lithuanian civilian air control or NATO's radar in Lithuania because he does not speak English.
Questioning this version, experts note that the plane, if disoriented, was not assisted by the other Russian planes in the convoy; ran out of fuel too soon if at all; it did not contact Kaliningrad air control on the Su-27's emergency radio with emergency frequencies; and could have contacted Lithuanian air controllers, both for civil aviation and with NATO's radar in Lithuania, who are fluent in Russian as well as English. Lithuania's ace pilot, Colonel (ret.) Stasys Murza, is among those asking such questions.
According to the Russian side, when fuel ran out the pilot crashed the plane deliberately into the empty field to avoid damage to lives and property. The investigation, however, does not rule out the possibility that the deep intrusion may itself have been deliberate, as part of an intelligence mission or practice of an operation. This theory gained currency when Lithuanian journalists identified Troyanov in film footage aired in October 2004 by Belarus state television, about a joint training simulation of a deliberate intrusion into Belarus air space.
Officials and the public also consider the distinct possibility that the flight may have been a planned operation to test NATO's air defense system and response capability in the Baltic states. Radar in Lithuania did not register the deep intrusion because the plane was flying low. Two NATO planes based at Zokniai in north-central Lithuania -- they are German air force F-4s in the current rotation -- spotted the Russian plane just after it had nosedived and while the pilot was parachuting.
Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov apologized to his Lithuanian counterpart, Gediminas Kirkilas, by telephone on September 15 and offered compensation for any damages. Since that date, however, Russia's ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense claim that the pilot and plane are legally immune. Moscow demands that the pilot and the plane's wreckage including the black box be handed over to Russia.
Lithuania's Prosecutor-General's Office and Defense Ministry are conducting a legal and a military investigation, respectively, into the incident. Troyanov's status was changed as early as September 16 from witness to suspect of violating international flight regulations. He is being questioned in the presence of a Lithuanian lawyer and in contact with the Russian embassy in Vilnius. From September 17 on, the Lithuanians have allowed Maj.-General Sergei Baynetov, head of the Russian Defense Ministry's flight safety service, with a group of Russian officers to observe the investigations as bystanders. Lithuanian authorities rule out any parallel Russian investigation or a Lithuanian-Russian joint investigation.
Estonia was affected by the first phase of this incident. While passing through Estonia's flight information area, the Russian planes deactivated their transmitters that should provide airspace controllers with data about the flight. Inasmuch as Estonia's Defense Ministry had granted permission for the flight in advance, it was all the more justified in issuing a protest against the action of "Russian air force planes switching off the transmitters, thereby posing a threat to the safety of civil aviation." Russia's First Deputy Defense Minister, Col.-General Alexander Belousov, in a public reply, denied outright that the planes were required to send flight-path data to air controllers while over flying international waters. However, such provision should be required in order to verify that the planes adhere to the flight path. Russian air force planes sometimes deviate from it, violating Estonia's air space and over flying Estonian islands.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania form an integral part of NATO's air space. Such incidents should generate discussion at NATO headquarters on improving the alliance' air policing mission in this region.
(ELTA, BNS, Lietuvos Rytas, Interfax, Russian Television, September 16-19)
(via EDM)
No comments:
Post a Comment