Romania downs foreign drone in its airspace

The Romanian Air Force shot down a foreign drone that entered the airspace of the NATO and EU member state on Friday morning, the Defence Ministry in Bucharest said.

Radar detected the intruding object at 9:39 am (0639 GMT). The pilot of an F-16 fighter jet eliminated the drone with a missile over uninhabited land near Padina in the eastern county of Buzău, the ministry wrote on its website.

According to the Mediafax news agency, this was the first drone to be shot down in Romanian airspace.

The ministry did not initially provide any information about the origin of the aircraft. Romania shares a border of approximately 600 kilometres with Ukraine, which is under constant drone attack by Russia.

Several dozen Russian drones have entered Romanian airspace in the past, although Bucharest only created the legal framework to shoot them down last year.

There are still concerns that debris from downed drones could endanger the population on the ground.

According to the ministry, two Italian fighter jets and another Romanian F-16 took off from the Fetești airbase in the south-east of the country as part of Friday’s response. The local population was warned of the danger of falling debris.

Defence Minister Radu Miruță congratulated the pilots on the operation.

“Through their professionalism, composure, and rapid response, they neutralized a drone that had illegally entered Romanian airspace,” he wrote on his Facebook page.