The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had a tense encounter with a Russian fighter jet when a Sukhoi Su-35 flew dangerously close to its US F-16 fighter in international airspace near Alaska on September 23.
Releasing footage of the headbutting maneuver, NORAD, in a tweet, called the action by the Russian jet "unsafe, unprofessional, and endangered all."
NORAD, a unique bi-national command between the United States and Canada, said the Russian jet action was not becoming a professional air force. NORAD employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft to detect and track aircraft.
The intercept happened when US F-16 was carrying out a routine drill in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), a designated area of airspace surrounding Alaska where the NORAD monitors and identifies aircraft for national security purposes. An ADIZ begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security, according to US Department of Defence.
Russia's embassy in Washington has yet to comment on the incident.
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This is not the first time such an intercept took place. In July, NORAD detected, tracked, and intercepted two Russian TU-95 and two Chinese PRC H-6 military aircraft operating in the Alaska ADIZ. Barely two weeks ago, NORAD had said they had tracked and intercepted two Russian TU-142 aircraft in the Alaska ADIZ.