An aerial accident almost occurred on Sunday over Sweden after a Russian fighter jet got too close to a commercial passenger aircraft, Reuters has learned.
The commercial plane was traveling from Copenhagen in Denmark to Poland's Poznan when it was ordered by Swedish authorities to divert from its flight path to avoid colliding with a incoming Russian jet.
Authorities reported the jet's transponder was deactivated. This is a device used by aircrafts so their locations can be easily identified by air traffic control facilities.
"The military aircraft had no transponder but we discovered it on our radar and warned the civilian air traffic control in Malmo," Swedish battle command center official Daniel Josefsson told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
General Major Igor Konashenko, the spokesperson for Russia's Defense Minsitry, denied that such incident occurred on Sunday and maintained that the country's aircrafts operate outside of the routes taken by civilian and commercial planes.
"A flight was carried out in strict accordance with international rules on air space and did not violate the borders of other countries and was at a safe distance from the flight paths of civilian airplanes," he said according to state news agency TASS.
The incident on Sunday marks the second time a Russian jet almost collided with a commercial plane. In March of this year, a Russian aircraft, which was also operating with its transponders turned off, had a near-miss with a commercial plane that departed Copenhagen, according to Newsweek.
Scandinavian airline company SAS, the owner of the two planes involved in the incidents on Sunday and last March, downplayed the latest near-collision and said the aircrafts were flying at a safe distance from each other.
The company's communications manager Knut Morten Johansen said the situation on Sunday was under control.
"In this particular case, no security perimeter has been broken," he told TT, a Swedish news agency. "It is therefore important by SAS to say that no one has been in danger, both the pilot and traffic management have had control of the situation."
