Malfunctioning Russian Missile May Have Saved RC-135 Spy Plane
Anonymous U.S. officials and leaked documents suggest that only a defective missile may have prevented a British RC-135 being shot down.
“The latest revelations to emerge from the leak of classified materials from the Department of Defense appear to provide a very different picture of the encounter between a U.K. Royal Air Force RC-135W Rivet Joint electronic surveillance aircraft and a Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter jet over the Black Sea last September 29.
While you can read our original reporting of that incident here, the new account suggests that, following a misunderstood order, a Flanker deliberately fired an air-to-air missile at the spy plane, but that the weapon malfunctioned. If that’s true, then it seems that a massive international incident and escalation may have been avoided thanks to nothing more than a faulty weapon.”
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/malfunctioning-russian-missile-may-have-saved-rc-135-spy-plane
