PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — US and Russian jet fighters will take turns pursuing a civilian plane across the Pacific this week in a first-of-its-kind exercise to test their response to a potential international hijacking.
Aircraft and officers from Russia and North American Aerospace Defense Command will track the civilian plane, an executive-style jet that will play the role of a hijacked civilian airliner.
Where were you on 9/11, NORAD?
The goal is to test how well the two forces can hand off responsibility for the plane. The three-day exercise started yesterday in Alaska.
Officials on both sides of the trust-building military exercise chose a mutual, modern-day interest — the fight against terror — to simulate an event that could entangle the two countries.
“We try to anticipate any potential areas in which it might be necessary for us to launch fighter jets,’’ said Major Michael S. Humphreys, a NORAD spokesman.
Except when war games were being held?
Related: NORAD Exercise a Year Before 9/11 Simulated a Pilot Trying to Crash a Plane into a New York Skyscraper
Moscow faces terrorist attacks by radicals from restive Russian provinces. In March, suicide bombers killed 40 on a Moscow subway, and an explosion in November 2009 derailed a Moscow-bound train, killing 26.
Also see: The Return of "Al-CIA-Duh" to Russia
Terror Train Returns to Russia
More recently, on July 29, a man seized a plane with 105 passengers and crew at a Moscow airport. Russian forces overpowered him.
I never saw that in my Globe.
The United States is still wrestling with terrorist threats to airplanes and subways nearly nine years after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings....
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Related: According to Russian General, 9/11 was a Globalist Inside Job
