Israeli fighters scramble to intercept undeclared airliner

[WhiteTara]

Source: AFP

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel scrambled fighter planes Saturday to intercept an unidentified passenger aircraft entering its airspace and escorted it to land at Tel Aviv, the Israeli military told AFP.

Israeli media reported that the aircraft turned out to be an Air Sinai flight from Cairo to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport.

"Earlier this morning, two Israel Air Force aircraft accompanied a foreign aircraft planning to land at Ben Gurion airport which did not identify itself when entering Israeli airspace," a military spokeswoman said.

"The aircraft landed safely at Ben Gurion airport as planned," she added, without giving further details.

An Egyptian aviation ministry official said that the pilot of the Boeing 737 had given the necessary notification to Cypriot authorities as he flew through their airspace but they were slow to pass it on to Israel.

"Given that the Cypriot air traffic control was late in providing Israeli air traffic control with the plane's identification, an Israeli Air Force jet intercepted the plane," a ministry official told reporters, adding that the airliner had since returned to Cairo.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/israeli-fighters-scramble-intercept-undeclared-airliner-144656693.html?nhp=1

[rjsquirrel]

1. Well

That's a dramatic ball of nothing.

[McKim]

2. How Sad

The fear level in Israel is very sad. They live in a constant state of alarm.

[WhiteTara]

3. We follow at a close second. nt

[eggplant]

4. When something that big flies into your airspace unannounced, you check it out.

We do it here in the US all the time.

Probably scared the fuck out of the pilots, though.

[Mosby]

5. Just in the past couple weeks the russians have shot at two IDF planes

Near the Syrian border.