Danger in the sky in the Black Sea! On March 14, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet collided with an American MQ-9 Reaper drone while the latter was on patrol in international airspace over the Black Sea.
A propeller of the drone having been impacted by the shock, the American soldiers crashed the MQ-9 in the ocean southwest of Crimea. This incident led to diplomatic and military discussions between Moscow and Washington. After the publication of an unauthenticated video appearing to come from the cockpit of a Russian plane, United States Forces Europe Command (Eucom for United States European Command) just publish images of the approach of the Su-27 near the drone.
According to the Pentagon, these evolutions around the MQ-9 would have lasted between 30 and 40 minutes. We can see on the images filmed by the camera pointed at the rear of the drone, the Russian plane carrying out an approach maneuver to drop fuel on the MQ-9. On a second, closer pass, the damaged propeller can be seen. The image then freezes. Russia has denied that a collision occurred.
