A Russian fighter jet zooms dangerously close to an American F-16 near Alaska in a dramatic video posted online Monday.
The Russian Su-35 flew in a manner that was “unsafe, unprofessional and endangered all,” Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, wrote Monday in a post on X. The conduct was “not what you’d see in a professional air force.”
The post was accompanied by a short video taken Sept. 23 from the point of view of the American F-16 fighter jet that was buzzed while flying within the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone.
The identification zone is airspace beyond a nation’s territorial boundary over which it maintains air traffic control for the sake of national security.
With the Russian jet’s wings tipped vertically, the aircraft comes up from behind the F-16 and whisks past the left side of the American jet, which immediately rocked to its side, the 15-second video shows.
On Sept. 23, 2024, a Russian Su-35 flew in a manner that was “unsafe, unprofessional and endangered all,” said Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. The e (North American Aerospace Defense Command)
On Sept. 14, NORAD tracked a pair of IL-38 surveillance aircraft that crossed the Alaskan zone.
In July, U.S. and Canadian fighter jets intercepted two Russian bombers and two Chinese bombers flying about 200 miles off the coast of Alaska, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters July 25.
In response to Russian and Chinese air forays into the Arctic region, the Alaska-based 11th Airborne Division earlier this month deployed three Army units to the Aleutian Islands, about 1,200 miles west of Anchorage.
Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Hilbert, commander of the 11th Airborne, described the deployment of soldiers to Shemya Island as a show of force.
“As the number of adversarial exercises increases around Alaska and throughout the region, including June’s joint Russian-Chinese bomber patrol, the operation to Shemya Island demonstrates the division’s ability to respond to events in the Indo-Pacific or across the globe, with a ready, lethal force within hours,” Hilbert said in a Sept. 13 statement.
