U.S. Intercepts Russian Strategic Bombers

The U.S. Navy scrambled fighter jets Saturday to intercept two Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers approaching a U.S. aircraft carrier in the western Pacific Ocean, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 29).

One bomber twice flew about 2,000 feet over the USS Nimitz while the other circled about 58 miles away, according to a U.S. military official.

The bombers were in a group of four Tu-95 aircraft that had flown the previous night from the Ukrainka Air Base.  Two of the aircraft aimed south toward the Japanese coast, where one encroached on Japanese airspace by flying over an uninhabited island south of Tokyo, according to Japanese officials.

U.S. officials followed the movements of the aircraft and the Nimitz dispatched four F/A-18 Hornet fighters when two of the bombers came within about 500 miles of the carrier and the guided missile cruiser USS Princeton.

The U.S. jets intercepted the Russian planes roughly 50 miles south of the Nimitz.  No fewer than two of the fighters escorted one bomber as it flew over the aircraft carrier and one or two jets trailed the second bomber as it circled from a distance.  No verbal communication took place between U.S. personnel and the Russian pilots, the U.S. official said.

The U.S. Defense Department is not aware of any diplomatic protests that the United States has filed over the incident.  Such bomber exercises have not spurred diplomatic grievances in the past because they took place routinely during the Cold War.

The incident was the first in which Russian bombers have buzzed or approached a U.S. aircraft carrier since 2004, AP reported (Lolita Baldor, Associated Press/Google News, Feb. 11).

Russia said today it had provided advance notice of the flights to the affected nations, its bombers remained over international waters and they did not enter any country’s airspace, Reuters reported.

“We are surprised by all the clamor this has raised,” RIA Novosti quoted Russian air force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky as saying (Reuters/International Herald Tribune, Feb. 12).

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