On the morning of today 25 June, two F-2000 fighters Euro Fighter of the Air Force, in alarm service for the defense of the national airspace, carried out an intervention on immediate take-off order (in military jargon called "scramble") to intercept and verify a civil aircraft that had activated the code that identifies a hijacking on board.
During the flight, the Piper PA 28 aircraft, which took off from Ferrara, erroneously entered the emergency code which is used to signal that a hijacking is taking place on board, thus triggering the alarm and interception procedure.
The two interceptor fighters of the 51st wing of Istrana, under the guidance of the air defense controllers of the 11th DAMI group of Poggio Renatico, once ascertained, in just a few minutes, the erroneous entry of the emergency code by the pilot of the PA 28, have resumed their national airspace surveillance service.
The operational mission was activated following the "scramble" order activated by aerospace operations command responsible for the control of the skies of that area and took place under the control of the operations rooms of the Air Force surveillance and air defense system.
The Air Force ensures seamless surveillance of the national airspace. Since peacetime, the Air Defense system against the military threat has been under the control of NATO which, through the combined air operation centre (CAOC) of Torrejon (Spain), carries out the surveillance of the airspace south of the Alps, from the Canary Islands to Turkey and from the Azores Islands to Romania.
The service is guaranteed – for the surveillance, identification and control part – by the 11th group Integrated Missile Air Defense (DAMI) of Poggio Renatico (Fe) and by the 22nd radar group of Licola (Naples), while the airborne intervention is ensured by four bases: 4th wing of Grosseto, 36th wing of Gioia del Colle and 37th wing of Trapani Birgi and 51st wing of Istrana, the latter permanently starting from April 2020. All the aforementioned wings are equipped with fourth generation fighter aircraft Euro Fighter.
