A Russian pilot tried to shoot down an RAF surveillance plane after believing he had permission to fire, the BBC has learned.
The pilot fired two missiles, the first of which missed rather than malfunctioned as claimed at the time.
Russia had claimed the incident last September was caused by a “technical malfunction”. The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) publicly accepted the Russian explanation.
But now three senior Western defence sources with knowledge of the incident have told the BBC that Russian communications intercepted by the RAF RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft give a very different account from the official version.
The RAF plane - with a crew of up to 30 - was flying a surveillance mission over the Black Sea in international airspace on 29 September last year when it encountered two Russian SU-27 fighter jets.
This is genuinely terrifying that we came this close to a major escalation between the two countries.
And genuinely mind boggling the incompetence of the Russian pilots here.
Wait until you hear about how many times we’ve come how close to a nuclear world war… or why GPS became available to the public in the first place and now Russian pilots can tape some receivers to the dashboards of their planes.