Russian fighter jet forces down US drone after collision over Black Sea

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The US military was forced to take down one of its own drones Tuesday after it collided with a Russian fighter jet over the Black Sea.

The MQ-9 Reaper was brought down in international waters after its propeller was struck by one of two Russian Su-27 aircraft that conducted an “unsafe and unprofessional intercept,” US European Command (EUCOM) said in a statement. It is believed to be the first time since the height of the Cold War that an American aircraft crashed as a result of an encounter with a Russian warplane.

“Several times before the collision, the Su-27s dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound, and unprofessional manner,” EUCOM added. 

“This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional.”

Russia’s fuel-dumping tactic, an apparent attempt to blind or damage the drone, is rarely seen. The pilots may have aimed to set the Reaper aflame with a “dump and burn”  – intentionally dumping and igniting fuel with the plane’s afterburner – but the practice is not commonly used for offensive purposes. 

Defense officials declined to say what they believed was Moscow’s intent with the maneuver. Fuel dumping is much more commonly used to allow pilots to lighten a jet’s fuel load for safety reasons before landing. 

“I certainly don’t want to speak for the Russian pilots, but it is clear their actions were unprofessional and outside the norms of internationally accepted practices,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Garron Garn told The Post.

While the Reaper can be armed, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the drone was conducting a standard intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission over the Black Sea.

“These aircraft had been flying over the Black Sea region for some time, to include before the current [Ukraine] conflict started,” he said. “It is an important and busy international waterway.”

Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, the commander of US air operations in Europe and Africa, claimed the Russian jet’s actions “nearly caused both aircraft to crash.” Ryder said the Su-27 was likely damaged in the collision, but managed to land safely soon after.

Back in Washington, the State Department summoned the Russian ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, to lodge a protest over the incident — though Ryder said US military officials had not “to my knowledge” spoken to their Russian counterparts about the encounter.

The collision took place just after 7 a.m. local time and follows “a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots while interacting with US and Allied aircraft over international airspace, including over the Black Sea,” according to EUCOM. Ryder said the Russian pilots harassed the drone for between 30 and 40 minutes before it went down.

Neither the US nor Russia had recovered the drone as of Tuesday afternoon, and Ryder would not say whether any attempt at a recovery would take place.

President Biden was briefed on the incident by national security adviser Jake Sullivan, a White House spokesperson said Tuesday.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that while the incident was “not the first time” US aircraft have been intercepted by Russian jets, “it is the first time that an intercept resulted in the splashing of one of our drones.”

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that it had scrambled fighter jets to intercept the drone after it intruded on airspace declared off-limits by Moscow as part of its invasion of Ukraine.

“As a result of quick manoeuvring … the MQ-9 drone went into an unguided flight with a loss of altitude and collided with the water surface,” said the defense ministry, which further claimed that their planes neither collided with the drone nor fired upon it.

After meeting with Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Karen Donfried, Antonov told reporters the drone flight was a “provocation” and argued that there was no reason for the US craft to be in the area. However, the ambassador added, “we don’t want any confrontation between the US and Russia.”

Meanwhile, Kirby vowed the incident would not prevent the US military from continuing its work in the region.

“If the message is that they want to deter or dissuade us from flying, and operating in international airspace, over the Black Sea, then that message will fail,” he said, later adding: “We’re going to continue to fly and operate in international airspace over international waters. The Black Sea belongs to no one nation.”

Tuesday’s incident took place weeks after the US military intercepted eight Kremlin fighter jets near Alaska in two separate incidents.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said it was twice forced in February to send two F-35A fighter jets to intercept the four Russian flights, supported by two F-16 fighters, an E-3 Sentry early-warning aircraft, and two KC-135 Stratotankers.

At the time, NORAD said that while Russian jets approaching the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone was somewhat commonplace, the back-to-back incidents in such close proximity were notable.  

With Post wires

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