F-22 Pilots Say Syrian Su-24 Crews Didn’t Know They Were Intercepted

Exclusive: U.S. Pilots Provide First Account of Tense Syrian Jet Encounter (excerpt)

Two F-22 Raptor pilots have said in a newspaper interview that they came within 2,000 feet of Syrian Su-24 bombers without the Syrians aware they were being shadowed. (USAF file photo)

SOUTHWEST ASIA --- Two American fighter pilots who intercepted Syrian combat jets over northern Syria last week said they came within 2,000 feet of the planes without the Syrians aware they were being shadowed.

The tense encounter occurred after Syrian jets dropped bombs near a U.S. adviser team with Kurdish forces in northern Syria. The Pentagon warned Syria that American forces were authorized to take action to defend its troops. Syrian aircraft haven’t dropped bombs in the area since then, and the U.S. military is no longer operating continuous combat patrols there.

“I followed him around for all three of his loops,” one of the American pilots, a 38-year-old Air Force major, told USA TODAY Wednesday in the first detailed account of the incident. “He didn’t appear to have any idea I was there.”

The two pilots asked that their names be withheld for security reasons.

“The behavior stopped,” said Brig. Gen. Charles Corcoran, commander of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, which conducts airstrikes in Iraq and Syria from an undisclosed location in this region. “We made our point.”

The encounter highlights the complexity of the battle in Syria against the Islamic State and raises worries that a mistake could widen the war. (end of excerpt)

Click here for the full story, on the USA Today website.

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