A spokesman from the Russian Ministry of Defense said a Su-27 was scrambled to intercept an American RC-135 over the Baltic Sea on Apr. 29 because the latter’s transponder was switched off.
By Mary Kavanagh [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
“At the same time we want to note that the RC-135U surveillance plane tries to sneak up to the Russian border with the transponder turned off each time. Therefore, the air defense forces on duty have to lift the fighter to visually identify the type of aircraft and its tail number,” Igor Konashenkov said.