NATO reconnaissance plane flies over Black Sea again this week
The Bombardier Artemis II has been seen twice this week, and on Saturday it was flying at about 9,000 meters outside civil aviation corridors.
A US-registered NATO reconnaissance aircraft was spotted over the international waters of the Black Sea again on Saturday, Russia's state news agency TASS reported.
A source in air traffic control services told TASS that the aircraft, a Bombardier Artemis II, was seen flying west to east over the southern Black Sea for the second time this week.
Last Tuesday, the plane spent nine hours on a similar route, matching the flight endurance record it set during a summer flight, the source said.
The aircraft was earlier spotted near the Kaliningrad Region, where it circled over Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic Sea, the source said.
It is now flying at about 9,000 meters outside civil aviation corridors, and it has entered no national airspace except Romania, where it took off, the source added.
The source said the aircraft is based in Constanta, a Romanian port city on the Black Sea coast.
Surveillance flights over the Black Sea have drawn close attention since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Romania, a NATO member, borders both the sea and Ukraine.
The report relies on an unnamed air traffic control source, and it does not include a statement from NATO or the Romanian government.
