The Russian Ministry of Defense has officially confirmed the interception of an American reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea. It happened on November 25. That day, the military spotted an airborne target flying fast towards the Russian state border. The Air Force reacted immediately. A Su-30 fighter took off from an airbase on duty in the Southern Military District.It approached the target and identified it. It turned out to be a Boeing P-8A aircraft, also known as Poseidon. The plane changed its trajectory and flew away. The Russian crew followed a plan, which has been in place for a while now. Western aircrafts are regularly observed near Russian borders. Only this month, the military has spotted more than ten of them.
The Pentagon hasn’t said a word about what caused the aircraft to fly like that, but they keep complaining about the "unsafe interception" manner of the Su-30 crew. The P-8A was forced to make a radical turn, which, here's a quote, "caused violent turbulence and also caused injuries to a crew member".
Let's ask Yevgeny Tishkovets if those claims are justified.
- Is it true that pilots sometimes pour kerosene on rival planes?
- They don't practice it anymore, but in Soviet Era this act was considered an extreme measure.
According to the MOD statistic data, from January to August 2017 Su-30SM fighters took off about 120 times to escort reconnaissance aircrafts and drones, and that’s only around the southern border of Russia. Russian pilots' have practiced it so much they can do it blindfolded. No one is looking to create unsafe situations. Here's what the experts say.
Alexander Romanov, ex-aircraft commander: "Today, everybody understands how tense the political environment is, especially the pilots of fighter jets. They would never violate any aviation rule or regulation. And they would never do anything to provoke the other crew to cause them to overreact and make the situation unsafe. Disturbing behavior is unacceptable. If such maneuvers are made, it just means that a certain aircraft must alter its course".
I want to point out, that there are no international rules for intercepting military aircrafts. The Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation presupposes regulations on the interception of civil airplanes. They were introduced when passenger planes started to violate state borders unintentionally. After some futile attempts to connect with the crew by radio, the interceptor approaches the violator from its left side, where the commander is. Then the jet begins rocking its wings and turns the flashing lights on. If that doesn't help, the fighter jet may cross across the violator's course path. Military aircraft are intercepted the same way. As a rule, that is enough time for spy planes to alter their course. In the Cold War Era, sometimes radical measures had to be taken.
Sometimes, NATO aircrafts didn't leave Soviet airspace even after the warning. When that happened, Soviet pilots would drain some of their jet fuel. The kerosene instantly turned into gas at the speed of more than 1000 km/h. In theory, that maneuver could cause a jet motor to blow up. In reality, there was a small chance of such a thing happening. For the Soviets, the fuel drain was more a sign to express the seriousness of intentions.
Those jets could hardly waste much fuel. Just look, a MiG-25 could carry 14.5 tons of kerosene. The jet spent 6.5 kg of fuel every kilometer it flew. With that in mind, its combat radius was 770 km. We also should add fuel costs for take-off and landing. It's clear that the MiG-25 fuel reserves were only sufficient to accomplish their mission. So, the waste of fuel could result in a full stop of the jet motor.
It also happened that the Soviet pilots which would take off to intercept US jets and stopped the motors of violators with their fighters' jet stream. Exhaust gas contains a big amount of carbon dioxide, so, getting caught in another plane’s stream, the pilots risk having their turbines fail. This was the most radical measure, which would have been taken only if the other measures failed to make the plane alter its course.
As for the latest incident, when an American reconnaissance plane was sent on patrol, I'd like to emphasize that it was intercepted at 6,000-km from US state borders, which makes the indignation of Pentagon officials look quite contrived indeed.
