The scramble alarm was launched by the NATO Headquarters Command and Control Center (CAOC) based in Uedem (Germany): the aircraft, belonging to the Russian Federation, traveled off the coast of the Baltic States without a flight plan or radio contact with traffic agencies.
Scramble's alarm, triggered at the TFA detachment, is the operational activity consisting in quickly activating a pair of fighter aircraft in order to take off, intercept and identify one or more unknown aircraft that violate the skies of the Alliance in order to guarantee its security. In just a few minutes, the Air Force pilots have intercepted and identified the aircraft, a Tupolev 154, according to the procedures laid down by NATO. The Italian Eurofighter are doing this service on Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, from the 1 January 2015 according to the shifts and the modalities established by NATO.
To date, Italy is the only NATO nation that has ensured the activities of Interim Air Policing in all 4 areas of the Alliance that have requested it (Slovenia, Albania, Iceland and the Baltic Republics). The Italian pilots dislocated at the base of Šiauliai were the first and for now the only ones to obtain the maximum efficiency result (so-called "excellent") at the conclusion of an inspection visit aimed at evaluating the efficiency of the forces deployed within the Baltic Air Policing mission. This is the first time since the mission established within the area of responsibility of the NATO Allied Command Operation (ACO) in Brussels (Belgium) was established.
Source: Task Force Air - Šiauliai, Lithuania - chap. Andrea Lanzilli
