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Our reporters were on board a Bundeswehr aircraft when a Russian fighter jet approached to within 50 meters. What then happened.
- A reporter from this editorial team accompanied the Bundeswehr on a mission over the Baltic Sea
- Suddenly a Russian fighter jet approached
- As the risky maneuver continued
Suddenly he appears Russian fighter jet up, a Sukhoi SU-27. He flies under the Bundeswehr aircraft, climbs up again at the front, brakes, sits next to the German military aircraft. 50, maybe 40 meters away. So close that you can see the Russian pilot behind the fighter’s panes – all this over the Bay of Danzig, at an altitude of almost 6,000 feet, heading north-west, at a speed of more than 400 kilometers per hour. The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is not far.
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In the sky over the Baltic Sea are the Russian forces and the German reconnaissance aircraft at this moment only a few meters apart. At a time of war in Ukraine and tensions between NATO and Russia, this is an explosive moment right on the western military alliance’s eastern flank.
The German crew sees the aircraft through the porthole wings of the Russian jet, loaded with six heavy Vympel rockets. “Dirty wings,” say soldiers. dirty wings.
Bundeswehr fighter pilots on a reconnaissance mission over the Baltic Sea
A few hours earlier, the two pilots, lieutenant captain Jörn and lieutenant captain Johannes, were standing in front of a map with arrows and lines together with two other crew members. Their full names should be the same as the others soldiers not to be named.
Here in the weather station At the Nordholz naval base near Cuxhaven, the pilots quite often hear the word “turbulence” from the troop’s meteorologists this Wednesday morning. And: “problems”. sea fog. And then, later in the afternoon, a storm front sweeps across the area. “Tight Wind Shear”. Pilot Jörn raises his eyebrows and calmly looks at the arrows on the map. They are considering whether to land later via Helgoland from the west via a detour.
The lieutenant captain is a soldier with the maritime reconnaissance aircraft of Naval Aviation Squadron 3 “Graf Zeppelin”. Seven o’clock was the start of work, then food was loaded, rolls, pretzels, biscuits, water, juice and gnocchi with vegetable sauce. laptops, tablets, parachutes, life jackets, life rafts. Everything goes inside the P-3C Orion, your plane, 35 meters long, 30 meters wingspan, four propeller engines. Also on board: radar systems, surveillance cameras with infrared sensors, magnetic anomaly detectors, sonar buoys that the crew can fire through tubes from the interior into the sea. And: decoy ammunition to ward off enemy guided missiles.
The P-3C is the largest fighter aircraft in the world armed forces, equipped for reconnaissance missions like this one. Now it is on the ground in front of the runway in Nordholz. The sky is slowly closing in.
NATO as life insurance for the Baltic states
The crew wants to be over the Baltic Sea, their operational area for the day, before noon. Just before the start they stand in a circle, Team meeting Inside the “Orion”, on the bottom a nautical chart of the Baltic Sea. Pierre is Tactical Coordinator, or “Tacco” for short, and directs the operation.
Tacco Pierre speaks loudly and once again explains the flight route, the “Point Lamar” where the troops go “on station”. At which she dives from the radar, flies low, her mission begins. Tacco has been a soldier for many years and has been to quite a few reconnaissance flights in action over the Baltic Sea. There are many abbreviations in his “briefing”. EPD31 or OLD, also a lot of English like “Special Area” and “Exit point”. It’s their jargon aboard the P-3C.
Their mission: for NATO, the Bundeswehr should be present in the Baltic Sea region, also as support for the Baltic states. In the event of war, the countries must be supplied primarily by sea. The Bundeswehr in Baltic Sea Region – from the point of view of countries like Estonia and Lithuania, it is life insurance over the sea.
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The German crew should also do their flights merchant ships identify, reconnoiter warships, create situation reports. “See what the Russians are doing,” as Tacco Pierre says this morning. Roger. Check. Then: Get ready for take off.
Ukraine war: situation in the Baltic Sea aggravated
The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the world. But it has also aggravated the situation in the Baltic Sea. “The Ostsee is part of a new conflict,” says Sebastian Bruns, an expert at the Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel. Actually since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.
Both sides – NATO and Russia – have been upgrading in the region since then. The Navy has increased its operations, and like every year, a major NATO maneuver takes place in the summer, the “Baltops”. And Russian associations also train at sea, the Kremlin has “armed up the Kaliningrad exclave with fleets and fighter planes to form a fortress,” according to expert Bruns.
Comment: Bundeswehr: Mistakes must not happen again
Submarines hunt with up to eight torpedoes on board
This Wednesday, the crew of the “Orion” also descends. descent, up to 60 meters above the sea surface, she rushes past a freighter, leans into the curve, gives thrust, flies close to the water again. The soldiers regularly practice these low-level flights, because the P-3C is not only a reconnaissance plane – it can also hunt down enemies. Up to eight torpedoes fit in the machine. On this day, however, she is unarmed.
The P-3C is heading towards this “fortress” this Wednesday. Course: east. The Baltic Sea lies under thick clouds. The pilots and the flight mechanic sit in the interior Cockpit. In the back, a chief boatswain with short hair and a beard looks at a screen, he is a “surface operator”.
Bright spots flash on the monitors, signals from the radar. The “operator” controls the objects on the screen with his finger, marks them green or red, and numbers them. R117 or G32. The colors are codes. Blue for NATO troops. green for merchant ships. Red for “Contact of interest”, which can be Russian forces or hazards such as oil rigs. Yellow: unknown.
Russian jet collided with US drone
Tacco Pierre gives the order to spot a yellow object. They stay on course for the spot on the radar and bring the infrared camera into position. A photo camera with a telephoto lens is also on board. Enlightenment in the 21st century is not only Computer-Sensory and high-tech buoys – there is also a lot of looking, being there. That’s what the crew is there for. Here too, in the Bay of Gdańsk, on international waters, but still close to Russian territory.
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The pilots of the P-3C knew shortly beforehand that the Russian fighter jet would climb up to them that day. Report by radio NATO reconnaissance from Poland the movements of two Russian planes over Kaliningrad. A few minutes later he appears in the sky.
The crew around pilot Jörn and Johannes stays on course. each maneuver is dangerous when two fighter jets fly so close together. A few weeks ago, a Russian jet collided with an unmanned US drone over the Black Sea. Dangerous to life for the pilot, for politicians an action with diplomatic explosives.
The Russian jet accompanies the German P-3C for about four minutes that day over the Baltic Sea. The crew takes photos, notes the weapon types, the pilot’s number, documents the manoeuvre. In photos, the Russian pilot can be seen looking over at the German fighter plane.
Then he turns and flies away. One emerges from the fuselage of the SU-27 plume of smoke. An engine failure? Fuel? The message from on board the German P-3C goes to the naval command and the NATO reconnaissance officers. Later, up to the Navy leadership, there was a discussion as to whether the pilot had intentionally dumped fuel there. As a kind of warning to the Bundeswehr crew. It would be an escalation in the airspace.
In the past, the German and Russian pilots would have waved at each other
After analyzing the video recordings and photos, the verdict of the Bundeswehr reconnaissance officers is clear: the Russian pilot did not intentionally release fuel. No escalation. It is unclear whether the engine was damaged. A small detail, a side note, actually. But the incident shows how tense the Western military is at the moment.
The routine continues inside the Bundeswehr machine. It is not the first time that Russian fighter jets have invaded the German reconnaissance plane intercept “They used to be closer,” says one of the soldiers. And earlier, years ago, these maneuvers had already happened. Sometimes they even waved at each other briefly in the air. Those days, says another, are over.
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