2014-12-14 The Russian Air Force is a busy global force of asserting Russian interests.
In the video below, a near collision between a Norwegian F-16 and a Russian MiG can be seen.
Russian MiG nearly collides with Norwegian F-16… by itnnews
According to a Daily Mail story published on December 2, 2014:
Dramatic footage has emerged showing a Norwegian air force pilot being forced into an emergency manoeuvre to avoid a mid-air crash with a Russian fighter jet.
In the video, released by Norway’s military, one of its pilots shouts ‘What the hell?!’ before veering away sharply as the Russian MiG-31 flashes into view, just 65 feet from the F-16.
‘The Russian pilot’s behaviour was not quite normal,’ said Norwegian armed forces spokesman Brynjar Stordal about the 26-second film clip released on Sunday.
The close encounter occurred in international airspace ‘north of Norway’ but the armed forces did not say when.
Unlike neighbouring non-aligned Sweden, Norway – a NATO member – has not reported any airspace incursions by Russia in recent years and gauges the level of Russian air force activity in the area as ‘pretty normal or a little more’ than usual.
So far this year, Norway has scrambled its air force 43 times to identify 69 Russian planes, compared to 41 incidents involving 58 planes in 2013.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last month that the alliance had reported 400 intercepts of Russian military flights so far this year – a 50 per cent increase compared to 2013.
He complained that Russian jets flying without sharing their flight plans posed a danger to commercial air traffic.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute also revealed ‘multiple incidents’ where Russian military aircraft had not filed flight plans nor spoken to civilian air traffic controllers and had turned off transponders that send information about the plane.
This made the planes virtually invisible to air traffic controllers, he told a news conference.
‘These Russian actions are irresponsible, pose a threat to civilian aviation and demonstrate that Russia is flagrantly violating international norms,’ he said. ….