A NATO reconnaissance plane was spotted in the airspace of the Baltic states this morning, including near the Estonian coast of the Gulf of Finland, a source from the European Union's air traffic control services said.
The plane in question is a Bombardier Artemis II, permanently based in Constanta, Romania. “Despite being a weekend, the plane, which took off from Romania, was spotted in the airspace of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, including near the Estonian coast of the Gulf of Finland, over which it made a turn“, the agency's source said. The source explained that as a rule, reconnaissance planes fly only on weekdays; weekend operations are rare.
“The plane is currently at an altitude of just over 9 km and is flying outside the designated civil aviation routes“, the agency's source stressed. He also noted that the plane is not approaching areas bordering Russia and Belarus.
The Bombardier Artemis II has already been flying this route since the beginning of August. The plane's activity has also been recorded near the Kaliningrad region and over the neutral waters of the Black Sea. In the first case, it flew over the Russian region, crossing into the airspace of Poland and Lithuania, as well as over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea. In the second case, it flew in the southern part of the waters, traveling from west to east and back, without entering the airspace of either country.