TAKING A LOOK BEHIND THE HEADLINES
TAKING A LOOK BEHIND THE HEADLINES
BYBY ROBERT BECKHUSEN ROBERT BECKHUSEN
AERIAL INTERCEPTS
AVOIDING POTENTIAL DISASTER
T
HE CREW OF a US Navy EP-3E
Aries II signals intelligence
aircraft on a routine mission
over the Black Sea on January
29 had a close call when a
Russian Aerospace Forces
(VKS) Su-27 ‘Flanker-B’ crossed its path
— at one point coming within 5ft of the
American aircraft and rocking it with
jet wash. The US Navy was so incensedthat it released both footage from the
EP-3 and a statement regarding the
event. ‘These videos show the Russian
Su-27 intercepting the EP-3 from a very
close position,’ said CAPT Bill Ellis. ‘For
the Russian fighter aircraft to fly this
close to the US Navy aircraft, especially
for extended periods of time, is unsafe.
The smallest lapse of focus or error in
airmanship by the intercepting aircrewcan have disastrous consequences.
There is no margin for error and
insufficient time or space for our
aircrews to take corrective action.’
Two months earlier, in the same
region, a Russian Su-30 turned on its
afterburners in the path of a US Air Force
RC-135 strategic reconnaissance aircraft,
violently interrupting its flight path and
forcing it to bank 15°.
Those were not the only recent close
calls between military aircraft in the
skies. On December 13, 2017, a USAF
F-22 Raptor ‘head-butted’ two Russian
Su-25 ‘Frogfoot’ ground attack aircraft
over eastern Syria near the Euphrates
River, which serves as a deconfliction
line established in 2017 to keep the two
sides’ aircraft apart. This tactic in military
aviation terms refers to traveling in theAbove: A screen-
grab from the
EP-3 incident in
January. While it
was not shown
in the released
imagery, during
the intercept the
Su-27 reportedly
executed a hard
turn ‘with an
excessive closure
rate’ and came
within 5ft of
the EP-3’s right
wingtip. US Navy16 May 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net
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