Yesterday afternoon, two Italian Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft of Task Force Air 36 ° Stormo, stationed in Estonia, intercepted a transport aircraft of the Russian Federation that was crossing the Baltic airspace without identifying itself properly. The aircraft was then accompanied out of NATO airspace according to the rules established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
The two Italian Typhoons, already in flight for a training mission, received from the CAOC (Combined Air Operations Center) NATO of Uedem, in Germany, the order to identify the aircraft that was soon intercepted according to the procedures established by the Atlantic Alliance.
The Scramble
The Scramble, in fact, is a proper air defense action consisting in the use, in a very short time, of a pair of fighter aircraft in order to intercept and identify an unknown aircraft that flies in the airspace of the Alliance without authorization, in order to to guarantee the safety of the skies from any possible and / or potential threat or simply to find a violation due to the lack of diplomatic authorization.
The Italian fighters are assuring from the first days of January the integrity of the airspace over the skies of the Baltic Republics under the control of NATO.
Air Policing
In 2004, with the entry into the Atlantic Alliance of the Baltic States and Bulgaria, the airspace of those countries became an integral part of the Euro-Atlantic space and, as such, were included in NATO's air and missile defense system. . This system also includes Air Policing, which consists of continuous air surveillance aimed at ensuring the integrity and security of NATO airspace.
