What happened? Serious incident in the Black Sea, the Russian pilot launches missiles to shoot down the British plane

An incident that happened in 2022, which has the Russian and British Air Forces as protagonists, has been discovered by the BBC . A Russian pilot has tried to shoot down an RAF surveillance plane after he believed he had permission to shoot down.

The pilot fired two missiles at the British plane, the first of which failed to hit the target and was not released due to a technical fault as claimed at the time.

But now three senior Western defense sources with knowledge of the incident have told the BBC that Russian communications intercepted by the RAF RC-135 jet show a different context to the official version.

The RAF plane flying with a crew of 30 on board was flying a surveillance mission over the Black Sea in international airspace on September 29 last year when it encountered two Russian SU-27 fighter jets.

Intercepted communications show that one of the Russian pilots thought he had been given permission to shoot down the British plane, following an unclear command from a Russian ground station.

As two Russian SU-27s approached the RAF spy plane, they had a communication with their ground station controller. A Western source told the BBC they were told: "You have the target".

This vague language at a delicate moment was interpreted by one of the Russian pilots as permission to shoot. The Russian pilot launched a missile, which fortunately did not hit its target.

However, a secret intelligence leak revealed that the US military talked about what happened in stricter terms. In a series of documents, the same incident was described as an "attempt to overthrow him".

"The incident was far more serious than initially portrayed and may have been an act of war," the New York Times reported.