Media: NATO surveillance aircraft spotted over Black Sea again

A NATO Bombardier Challenger 650 Artemis II surveillance and targeting aircraft has again been spotted flying over international waters in the Black Sea, TASS reports, citing a source in European Union air traffic control services.

The source said the aircraft has been patrolling the southern part of the Black Sea, flying back and forth from west to east without entering the airspace of any country.

The aircraft reportedly departed from its base in Constanța, Romania, before transiting Romanian- and Bulgarian-controlled airspace en route to international waters.

It was flying at an altitude of just over 9.7 kilometres and outside civilian air corridors.

The source noted that the same aircraft carried out an unusually short 40-minute mission over the western Black Sea on Saturday before taking off again and repeating the same west-to-east patrol pattern.

The Bombardier Challenger 650 Artemis II has been observed operating over the southern Black Sea several times in recent months.

On July 17, a NATO RQ-4D Phoenix strategic surveillance drone was also tracked over the Black Sea for the first time in nearly three months after departing from Sigonella Air Base in Sicily, where it conducted several patrols over the southern part of the sea.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov