The BBC says a Russian pilot tried to shoot down a British plane over the Black Sea last year

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — The BBC is reporting that a Russian pilot deliberately fired missiles at a Royal Air Force surveillance plane in international airspace over the Black Sea last year. Russia previously attributed the incident to a “technical malfunction.” The broadcaster said intercepted communications suggested the pilot of a Russian Su-27 fighter jet fired on the unarmed U.K. plane in September 2022 after receiving an ambiguous command from a Russian ground station. In public, British officials have downplayed the incident. Then-U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told lawmakers in October that a Russian jet had “released a missile in the vicinity of’’ a British plane but that Britain didn’t consider it “a deliberate escalation.”