A groundbreaking training exercise ended late on Tuesday after US and Russian fighter jets crisscrossed the Pacific in pursuit of a chartered plane playing the role of a hijacked airliner.
The “hijacked” plane — actually a chartered executive-style Gulfstream — landed in Anchorage after flying across the Pacific and back, monitored all the way by fighters and aerial command posts from both sides. On board were officers from Russia and from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a US-Canadian force that patrols the skies over North America.
The exercise was designed to test how well Russia and NORAD could coordinate their efforts in the event of a hijacking, especially during the critical handoff stage when the commandeered plane moves from one side’s airspace to the other.
The drill will make it harder for terrorists to pull off a hijacking against the US, Canada or Russia by building up the air travel system’s defenses, said Canadian Forces Colonel Todd Balfe, the deputy commander of NORAD’s Alaska region and the senior NORAD observer aboard the Gulfstream.
“I think any time that we increase our cooperation and our coordination, we harden ourselves against further events,” Balfe said. “If, for example, we make it harder for terrorists to do us harm, they’ll choose either not to do us harm or will look for other, more difficult manners or other ways of approaching us.”
If terrorists do succeed in hijacking a plane, the exercise will help NORAD and the Russians be prepared to respond.
Military commanders and civilian analysts say the threat of terrorism is serious for the US and Russia. On July 29, a man seized a plane with 105 passengers and crew at a Moscow airport. On Christmas Day, a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a jetliner over Detroit.
The joint exercise, called Vigilant Eagle, started on Sunday when the Gulfstream, code-named Fencing 1220, left Anchorage and headed west. Along with Balfe, Russian Air Force Colonel Alexander Vasiliev, US Army Major Michael Humphrey and a US translator were on board.
Shortly after takeoff, the Gulfstream’s civilian pilots sent a digital distress code to civilian air traffic controllers in Alaska signaling it had been “hijacked.”
Civilian controllers notified NORAD, which dispatched two F-22 Raptor fighter jets to shadow Fencing 1220 and an E-3 Sentry airborne surveillance and control plane to track it.
When the Gulfstream entered Russian airspace over the Pacific, commanders in the E-3 handed over responsibility for the plane to their Russian counterparts on an A-50 Mainstay surveillance and control plane. Four Russian Su-27 fighters and one MiG-31 then took turns shadowing the Gulfstream.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS