Pentagon alarmed by uptick in close calls with Russia planes

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is voicing growing alarm that the risky flying of Russian pilots in Syria could lead to a mishap-or even the nightmare scenario of a US jet shooting down a Russian warplane. Defense officials this week highlighted several recent close calls with Russian planes, including one Wednesday, when a pair of US F-22s intercepted two Russian jets over a part of Syria in which the Pentagon says they are not meant to be operating. The uptick in incidents comes as remaining operations by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Syria have shrunk down to an area of only about 15 square miles around Albu Kamal in eastern Syria, by the Iraq border.

Coalition forces are giving air support to local Kurd and Syrian Arab partner troops on the ground as they root out remaining IS fighters east of the Euphrates River. Under a verbal agreement, the Russians, who support President Bashar Al-Assad, are supposed to stay to the west. Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart, an Air Force spokesman in the Middle East, outlined a string of instances where Russian fighter jets flew east of the Euphrates without notifying the coalition. On November 15, two US A-10 Warthog ground-attack planes nearly collided head on with a Russian Su-24 Fencer that passed within only 300 feet of the American planes-a mere whisker in aviation terms.

One A-10 pilot had to “aggressively execute a defensive maneuver to avoid a midair collision,” Pickart said in an email to AFP. Then on November 17, two F-22s intercepted an armed Russian Su-24 that flew over coalition and partner forces three times and failed to respond to radio call. “The F-22s intercepted this pilot and were in a position to fire,” Pickart said. “Luckily our pilots showed restraint, but given the actions of the Su-24 aircraft could have reasonably been interpreted as threatening to US forces, our pilots would have been well within our rights to engage.”