F/A-18s intercept Russian bombers near carrier

 

By Lolita C. Baldor - The Associated Press

Posted : Monday Feb 11, 2008 17:08:47 EST

 

WASHINGTO — U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers flying unusually close to an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend, The Associated Press has learned.

 

A U.S. military official says that one Russian Tupolev 95 buzzed the aircraft carrier Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 50 nautical miles out. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the reports on the flights were classified as secret.

 

The Saturday incident, which never escalated beyond the flyover, comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia over U.S. plans for a missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic.

 

Such Russian bomber flights were common during the Cold War, but have been rare since.

 

The bombers were among four Russian Tupolev 95s launched from Ukrainka in the middle of the night, including one that Japanese officials say violated their country’s airspace over an uninhabited island south of Tokyo.

 

U.S. officials tracked and monitored the bombers as two flew south along the Japanese coast, and two others flew farther east, coming closer to the Nimitz and the guided missile cruiser Princeton.

 

As the bombers got about 500 miles out from the U.S. ships, four F/A-18 fighters were launched from the Nimitz, the official said. The fighters intercepted the Russian bombers about 50 miles south of the Nimitz.

 

At least two U.S. fighters trailed the bomber as it came in low over the Nimitz twice, while one or two of the other U.S. fighters followed the second bomber as it circled.

 

The official said there were no verbal communications between the U.S. and the Russians, and the Pentagon has not heard of any protests being filed by the United States. Historically, diplomatic protests were not filed in such incidents because they were so common during the Cold War era.

 

This is the first time Russian Tupolevs have flown over or interacted with a U.S. carrier since 2004.

 

Find Navy Times article here.

From Navy Times

 

CNO: Russian bomber incident ‘not provocative’

By Zachary M. Peterson - Staff writer

Posted : Tuesday Feb 12, 2008 17:33:44 EST

 

The Navy’s top officer said he did not find the recent flyover of a U.S carrier by two Russian bombers “provocative,” adding that the bombers were simply “stretching their wings.”

 

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told reporters at the Pentagon that such flyovers — first revealed by The Associated Press on Monday — were common in the past.

 

“This was something that was really quite common in the days of the Soviet navy,” Roughead said on Tuesday.

 

The AP reported that two Tupolev Tu-95MS Bear long-range bombers approached the carrier Nimitz off the coast of Japan over the weekend, and a single Bear twice flew over the carrier at the low altitude of 2,000 feet. The Nimitz launched two F/A-18 Hornets to escort the Russian aircraft when they were about 500 miles away from the ship.

 

Roughead said he thought the incident was an example of a Russian navy trying to re-emerge on the global scene. He cited the recent example of Russian ships exercising in the Mediterranean Sea as proof of this attempt to return to prominence on the seas.

 

“I do not consider [the incident] to be provocative,” Roughead said.

 

There has been no communication about the incident between the two navies, he added.

 

“My sense is that they are stretching their wings, so to speak,” Roughead said. “We had a ship out there, they flew out and we intercepted it — I know I’m not playing this up very much but that’s the way I see it.”

 

“They came out to look, we joined up and flew with them until they went home,” he added.

 

In turn, Roughead also addressed other matters in Tuesday’s 40-minute press conference, the first such event he has hosted since becoming CNO in late September.

 

Addressing the recent decision to deploy the Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group, which consists of amphibious ships, surface warships and a submarine, without its usual complement of Marines and equipment, Roughead said deploying without the Marines adds flexibility to the ships’ movement.

 

“The decision was made for the Marines to deploy not using amphibious shipping, and we had worked up that group of ships, the Nassau ESG, and consistent with our strategy using those ships to go forward to be able to conduct operations with other navies, other militaries, not just in the Central Command area of operations but to have the flexibility for those ships to do some work perhaps in the Mediterranean or as far as the Pacific area of operations,” he said.

 

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, set to deploy to Afghanistan, trained with the Nassau ESG last year in anticipation of a February deployment. The Marines will now fly overseas, while their equipment is being carried by the Military Sealift Command cargo ship Algol. At the time of the announcement, one Navy official said it was “faster, easier and cheaper to fly the Marines and ship their equipment.”

 

Roughead declined to say whether cost was involved in the decision to deploy minus the Marines.

 

“There are a lot of factors that go into why we make certain deployment decisions,” he said. “I don’t want to get into whether or not it’s cheaper, there are just a lot factors involved.”

 

On the subject of the Navy’s 313-ship fleet plan, Roughead told reporters he remains committed to the number 313 as a “floor,” or the minimum number of ships the service needs by 2020. He added that he has a team within the Navy working to figure out what the “ceiling,” or maximum number, might be.

 

The Navy must pursue common hull forms to reduce shipbuilding costs, Roughead said. However, he defended the troubled Littoral Combat Ship program and said that the suggestion by some members of Congress, and others, that the Navy should buy the Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter instead of LCS is not the solution to meeting the Navy’s near-shore capability gap.

 

“LCS is the best ship to fill that gap — it has the speed, the shallow draft that expands and it’s been designed to have rapidly changeable mission modules,” Roughead said.

 

The NSC does not have the “war-fighting” capabilities LCS has, he said.