WASHINGTON — A Russian fighter jet flew inside just a few meters of a U.S. drone over Syria and fired flares at it, putting the American plane and damaging it, the U.S. navy mentioned Tuesday.

A senior Air Force commander mentioned the transfer on Sunday was an try by the Russians to knock the MQ-9 Reaper drone out of the sky and got here only a week after a Russian fighter jet flew dangerously near a U.S. surveillance plane carrying a crew within the area, jeopardizing the lives of the 4 American crew members.

“One of the Russian flares struck the U.S. MQ-9, severely damaging its propeller,” Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, the pinnacle of U.S. Air Forces Central, mentioned in a press release describing the most recent shut name. “We call upon the Russian forces in Syria to put an immediate end to this reckless, unprovoked, and unprofessional behavior.”

Grynkewich mentioned one of many crew members working the drone remotely saved it within the air and flew it again to its house base.

The Sunday incident is the most recent in a sequence of encounters between Russian fighter jets and U.S. plane flying over Syria. In all however the one occasion every week in the past, the U.S. plane have been MQ-9 drones with out crew members. On that Sunday, nevertheless, the Russian Su-35 jet few near a U.S. MC-12 surveillance plane with a crew, forcing it to undergo the turbulent wake.

U.S. officers on the time known as it a major escalation within the ongoing string of encounters between U.S. and Russian plane that would have resulted in an accident or lack of life. They mentioned the Russian transfer hampered the crew members’ capability to securely function their aircraft.

In latest weeks, U.S. officers mentioned, Russian fighter jets have repeatedly harassed U.S. MQ-9 drones, that are conducting anti-Islamic State group missions, largely in western Syria.

On a number of events previously three weeks, the officers mentioned, Russian fighter jets flew dangerously near the U.S. Reapers, setting off flares and forcing the drones to take evasive maneuvers.

U.S. and Russian navy officers talk incessantly over a deconfliction telephone line in the course of the encounters, protesting the opposite aspect’s actions.

There are about 900 U.S. forces in Syria, and others transfer out and in to conduct missions concentrating on Islamic State group militants.

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