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NATO airborne early warning aircraft circling over Gulf of Riga

The aircraft took off from an airfield in Siauliai

MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/. A Boeing E-3A Sentry airborne early warning and control aircraft is circling over the Gulf of Riga in Latvian airspace, a source in EU air traffic control services told TASS.

"The NATO aircraft, controlled by the Netherlands, is circling in Latvian airspace, primarily over the waters of the Gulf of Riga at an altitude of almost 9 kilometers," the source said, noting that the aircraft took off from an airfield in Siauliai, Lithuania, where it has been based for the past few months.

According to the source, this same aircraft was spotted in Romanian airspace over this past weekend, circling near the Black Sea coast. Previously, it flew near the border between Romania and Poland and Ukraine.

Boeing E-3A Sentry aircraft are designed for radar scanning of large areas and territories, detecting various aerial targets, including aircraft and missiles. They are capable of fire control. The source did not specify the specific purpose of the current flight over the Gulf of Riga, but noted that the aircraft’s onboard equipment allows it to detect and identify aerial objects at a distance of up to 400 km.