An Austrian plane flew into the forbidden airspace of Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant yesterday evening. The Hungarian air force was immediately alerted.
According to 24.hu, the airspace within a 3-kilometre radius of the Paks nuclear power plant is forbidden for any plane to enter. The communications director of the power plant told MTI yesterday that an Austrian, Piston-type small aircraft breached the airspace of the nuclear power plant. Antal Kovács said that the fighter jets of the Hungarian Defence Forces escorted the plane to Szeged.
The Gripens took off when the small aircraft did not establish a radio connection with the civil air traffic control. The Hungarian fighter jets identified the Austrian plane, established a radio connection with the pilot, and escorted it to Szeged. Afterwards, they returned to the Kecskemét airbase.
Interestingly, this was the second breach yesterday. As we reported before, Hungarian Gripen fighter jets were scrambled by NATO’s Combined Air Operations Centre on Friday afternoon because of a bomb threat on a Serbian-registered passenger aircraft flying from Saint Petersburg to Belgrade, the defence ministry told MTI. The Gripens escorted the A319 aircraft out of the Hungarian airspace, the ministry said.