The very loud bang that could be heard early Monday morning over the southern Rhine-Main area was caused by two Eurofighters from the Tactical Air Force Wing 74 of the German Armed Forces.

The two jets broke the sound barrier on their way to an alarm mission.

They were given the task of establishing contact with a civilian aircraft to which radio contact had previously been briefly broken.

As a so-called alarm riot, the fighter jets are intended to prevent civil aircraft from being used for terrorist attacks in an emergency, as was the case on September 11, 2001 in the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Jochen Remmert

Airport editor and correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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As a spokesman for the Bundeswehr Aviation Office explained when asked, it is of crucial importance to react as quickly as possible in such a potential threat situation.

Therefore, supersonic flights are also necessary.

The spokesman did not answer the questions about what mission the pilots had, with what armament the aircraft went into action and which civil aircraft caused the alarm riot to rise.

Missing radio contact

According to the Air Force, there is an alarm about once or twice a month because there is no radio contact with civil aircraft. As a rule, according to the information, such use is based on comparatively harmless causes. When, for example, a civil aircraft changes from one surveillance sector to the next, the respective controller informs the pilot of the radio frequency for the sector in which he is about to fly. This then usually establishes contact with the controller responsible for this part of the airspace. A simple twist of numbers can mean that this contact does not work immediately.

For security reasons, however, the national situation and command center for security in the airspace is alerted just a few minutes after the contact is lost.

It is responsible for the alarm riot operations and was set up in 2003 as a reaction to 9/11 and to an undisturbed random flight of a small plane over Frankfurt in 2003.

The fighter jets should get an idea of ​​what led to the loss of contact as quickly as possible “on site”.

In the command center, the German air traffic control in Langen, the Federal Police as part of the security department on behalf of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Air Force on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Defense work together.