The head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed to report on the circumstances of the incident with a Russian plane flying to Sochi, which changed course due to an unidentified vessel in the sky.

As specified in the department, the plane of one of the Russian airlines, en route from Yekaterinburg to Sochi, was forced to change course due to an unidentified aircraft.

More than 160 people were on board.

“Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Ivanovich Bastrykin instructed the acting

Head of the Western Interregional Investigation Department for Transport of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, P.S. Vymenets

to report on the circumstances of the incident in the airspace, ”the UK said.

In turn, a TASS source in the aviation services clarified that the incident happened over the Black Sea.

According to the source, at that moment, two passenger flights were arriving at the Sochi airport at the same time, both landed safely.

At the same time, the portal E1.ru reported that it was a flight U6-219 of Ural Airlines, on board of which there were 160 passengers, including 12 children and 6 crew members.

According to the portal, the incident took place the day before over the Black Sea, about 50 km from the coast.

According to the newspaper, the Boeing-737 of the Aeroflot airline, which flew from Sheremetyevo to Sochi, was also forced to change its course.

Incidents with Russian aircraft

In early December, an Aeroflot passenger plane en route from Tel Aviv to Moscow changed course over the Black Sea, as its trajectory was crossing another aircraft.

There were 142 passengers on board.

“On December 3, the crew of Aeroflot A330-300 flying SU501 from Tel Aviv to Moscow did indeed receive a command to change the flight level from 33,000 feet to 31,000 feet.

The instruction came from the air traffic controller and was due to the fact that the trajectory was crossed by another aircraft, ”the press service quoted TASS as saying.

At the same time, Interfax, citing a source in the air traffic control services, reported that the civilian airliner was forced to change course in order to avoid a dangerous rapprochement with a foreign reconnaissance aircraft.

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According to the source, one of the two reconnaissance aircraft randomly crossed the established civil aviation routes and approached the Aeroflot board.

The intruder did not respond to inquiries from the ground.

“The crew reported that an alarm about a dangerous approach was triggered.

There was less than 20 meters between the planes vertically.

The dispatchers gave the command to the civilian plane to descend 500 meters and take a safer flight, ”the source said.

At the same time, the Federal Air Transport Agency reported that on December 3, a NATO CL-600 reconnaissance aircraft crossed the routes of civil aircraft over the waters of the Black Sea.

The department confirmed that the crew of the foreign aircraft did not respond to inquiries.

“On the morning of 12/03/2021 at 09:53, over the open waters of the Black Sea near the area of ​​responsibility of Russian air traffic services, the NATO CL-600 reconnaissance aircraft performed a air traffic service route, ”the Federal Air Transport Agency reported.

The department emphasized that the increased intensity of NATO aircraft flights near the borders of the Russian Federation creates the risk of dangerous incidents in relation to civil aircraft. 

They also announced their intention to send a protest through diplomatic channels.

We will remind that recently the Russian side has repeatedly reported on dangerous flights of foreign aircraft over the Black Sea waters.

So, on December 10, a Russian Su-30 fighter was escorted by a Poseidon P-8A reconnaissance aircraft of the US Navy over the Black Sea.

This was reported at the Russian National Defense Control Center, specifying that the American plane was approaching the Russian state border.

On December 9, three Su-27s escorted two tactical fighters Mirage 2000 and Rafale of the French Aerospace Forces, a CL-600 Artemis reconnaissance aircraft of the US Ground Forces, a strategic reconnaissance aircraft RC-135 of the US Air Force and a tanker aircraft KS-135 of the Aerospace Forces of France over the Black Sea ...

In Russia, it is regularly noted that such actions pose a threat to security in the airspace.