The United States sent a new spy drone into the Black Sea on Friday, flying off the coast of the Crimean peninsula and close to the resort of Sochi on the Russian coast in the Krasnodar region in the North Caucasus.
The drone, which took off from a base in Italy, is a Global Hawk model – different from the Reaper drone downed on Tuesday after a collision with a Russian jet.
The surveillance and spy plane had its transponder on throughout the flight, so its route could be tracked live on the Flight Radar app, making it the most tracked flight of the day.
The drone took off at 04:45 in the morning from Sigonella Air Base in Sicily, Italy. The aircraft then flew for about 8 hours over the Black Sea, between the Crimean peninsula and the coast of Turkey, and reached the area of the west coast of the Russian Federation, where the important port of Novorosiisk is located, as well as the resort of Sochi.
“FORTE 10” was the most monitored flight of the day on Friday, according to Flight Radar. The overflight came days after a US Reaper drone crashed in the Black Sea following a collision with a Russian Sukhoi fighter jet that had taken off from Crimea.
Also, on Friday morning, real-time monitoring applications for maritime traffic on the world’s seas and oceans showed an unusual concentration of unidentified vessels in the area where the Reaper drone crashed.