Two reconnaissance aircraft spent nearly seven hours over Black Sea

MOSCOW, October 7. /TASS/. Two reconnaissance aircraft spent nearly seven hours flying over the international waters of the Black Sea, a source in EU air traffic control services told TASS.

The aircraft were a Swedish Air Force Gulfstream S102B Korpen radar reconnaissance plane and a US-registered NATO Bombardier Artemis II reconnaissance aircraft. They flew back and forth from west to east over the southern part of the Black Sea.

"Both aircraft spent nearly seven hours in the air before landing at their departure airfields in Bucharest and Constanta, Romania," the source said. According to the source, the simultaneous operation of two such reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea is a relatively rare occurrence.

"The aircraft operated at altitudes ranging from 10.5 to 13.5 kilometers, outside established civil aviation routes, and did not enter the airspace of any coastal state other than Romania, from where they had departed," the source noted.

He added that the Swedish electronic reconnaissance aircraft had also flown over the Black Sea during the previous two days, spending more than seven hours in the area the day before.