MOSCOW, September 26 (Itar-Tass) - Russian jets Su-27 have forced a passenger aircraft, "seized” by imaginary terrorists, and made it land during a joint Russia-NATO exercise codenamed Vigilant Sky 2013, an official of the exercise’s command post told Itar-Tass on Thursday.
According to the maneuvers’ legend, terrorists seized a Tupolev-134, which took off from Krasnodar in the southern Russia, and attempted to direct the plane to a nuclear power plant, using it as a ram to crash into the plant. Russian jets Su 27, sent to intercept the target, threatened to destroy the captured plane and made it land in the city of Yeisk in the Krasnodar region.
NATO representatives monitored the exercises from three centers located in Ankara, Warsaw and Brussels. The operation was controlled from a Moscow center created by the federal state unitary enterprise State Air Traffic Management (ATM) Corporation (a branch of the Federal Air Transport Agency).
On Wednesday, a similar scenario was used for the exercises in Poland, where a plane took off from Krakow, and then terrorists on board attempted to make the plane change its course. The Poland sent two F-16 jets to intercept the plane, and the jets forced the plane to land.
The Vigilant Sky exercises have been held a second time after a previous drill held in 2011.