by Jack
It’s just come to light that one day after the downing of the Malaysian passenger jet over the Russian – Ukraine border, a USAF RC-135 was buzzing around just inside Russian airspace listening to the communications between military commanders and Moscow. The RC-135 spy plane can listen in on cell phones, email, phone lines, radio transmissions and monitor ground activities. When needed it serves as a mobile command post for air, sea and land operations. The venerable old KC-135 is the Air Force’s tanker version, but this plane is much newer and carries the most advanced spy gear in the world.
The Russians detected the large aircraft and dispatched a fighter to intercept it. At that very moment the RC-135 turned west toward Sweden and then south. The Russian plane was flying at twice the speed of the RC-135, but it was unable to close the distance before the U.S. spy planed slipped into Swedish airspace. The chase lasted about 12 minutes and covered a distance of about 120 miles for the US airplane, the Russian fighter had to travel much further (almost 300 miles). The US plane was never within missile range.
Presumably the RC-135 was trying to gather evidence that Russia was involved in the downing of the civilian airliners, which Moscow steadfastly denies. Pres. Putin has suggested it was the Ukrainians who fired the missile. Tracking data would suggest otherwise. The missile was fired from well within the Russian controlled portion of the Ukraine.
One day after the pursuit of the RC-135 the White House press secretary announced that recently gathered intelligence persuaded President Obama to lay responsibility at least indirectly at the door of the Kremlin. That evening Obama tried to channel international indignation toward Russia for what he called an “outrage of unspeakable proportions.” President Obama said the episode should be “a wake-up call for Europe” and “should snap everybody’s heads to attention” about what is going on in Ukraine, where a pro-Russia insurgency has become an international crisis.
The Navy flies a similar aircraft to the RC-135 called an E6-B, not to be confused with the older EA6B Prowler. Both aircraft are based Boeing’s 707 airframe, however the Navy version has a longer range, at 5850 miles compared to the RC-135’s 3800 miles. Top speed for both is 580 mph with a crew of about 22. The Navy version is armed with radar guided torpedoes for anti-submarine warfare. It also carries sonobouys which are dropped into the ocean to detect submarines that are otherwise hidden to surface craft sonar. Both versions also serve as Washington’s communication link to our nuclear forces and as a backup to all our military forces in the event that other communication systems are knocked out. Military personnel refer to them as Doomsday planes because of their key role in the nuclear launch pipeline.
“Although UK-based RC-135s have flown more than 50 missions in the region, sometimes flying over Poland, sometimes into Lithuania and Latvia, and sometimes over the Baltic Sea near the Russian base in Kaliningrad to eavesdrop Russian signals and collect intelligence data, this was the first time, according to DN.se, that the American plane apparently reacted to the interception attempted by the Russians with an unauthorized short-cut over Sweden.
After overlying Sweden largest island, the RC-135 turned southbound reached the international airspace before entering the Swedish airspace off Oland.
Violations of Swedish airspace are quite frequent (and, sometimes they do not face a response by the Swedish Air Force’s Gripen jets): seven violations were recorded in 2014, and a total of 53 aircraft have flown without permission inside Stockholm’s airspace since 2009, DN reported.” The Aviationist online