(Newswire.net — December 4, 2014) — It is always sunny above clouds, however, for one Norwegian ‘top gun’, a casual flight turned into a nightmare when Russian fighter-bomber MiG-31 suddenly appeared, forcing him to instinctively bank left.
The Russian jet passed the F-16 within 20 yards, causing the Norwegian pilot to exclaim, “What the hell!” before darting away hastily.
“We don’t know if it was a miscalculation or if he deliberately put himself in the path of our F-16,” Norwegian Armed Forces representative Brynjar Stordal told AFP, adding that the “Russian pilot’s behavior was not quite normal.”
Nonetheless, the stunt of a Russian pilot additionally tightens already tight relationship between Russia and NATO. The number of close encounters in the international airspace near Norway has been consistent over the last five years. However, Norway’s Air Force reported there are significantly more activities of Russian fighter plains this year than the years before. Norway air command said they had to scramble Russian military planes 43 times this year and 42 times in 2013.
The command says NATO pilots are usually polite and keep their distance When NATO fighter jets intercept Russian bombers and other warplanes, or vice versa. Until now, Russian pilots have been polite and kept their distance too.
Before this, the last near-proximity incident took place in 2012 when a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet intercepted and approached “uncomfortably close” to a Norwegian Orion reconnaissance aircraft over the Barents Sea.
The Mikoyan MiG-31 (NATO code name Foxhound) is a Soviet-design supersonic interceptor. With its 2283.6 mph top speed, MiG-31 is the world’s fastest aircraft still in service, after the US Air Force decommissioned Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft.
Giving that it was fly-by incident, the Russian Pilot probably couldn’t lower the speed and puled to a courteous distance. For all we know, it may be a pure luck that Russian fighter plane didn’t hit NATO’s F-16 from behind and that what happened wasn’t intentional.
If it turned out to be premeditated, however, that could start a new, and rather dangerous chapter in the already-tense East-West relations, which could have lasting consequences.