Air forces of Italy and Greece haven’t recorded a single incident in the Montenegrin sky during the Air policing mission this year, Mr Manfred Rodenbach, Allied Air Command official said during the virtual conference on Air policing mission in the organization of NATO.
Mr Rodenbach said that most incidents along the course of the mission had been related to the loss of communication.
“Similar to Slovenia, Montenegro is a small country and it is, therefore, important to have command and control network through the air policing arrangement. That means that NATO becomes aware of the craft that could be a potential threat thanks to the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) in Toledo. On the grounds of the route of the craft, we can see where it is headed and we can take specific caution measures and send our planes to identify problem, if there’s a problem at all”, Mr Rodenbach explained.
It is particularly important for small countries that CRC (Control and Reporting Center) and CAOC work together, exchange information and cooperate with institutions of civil aviation, in order to respond to the incidents.
Air policing mission in Montenegro started in June 2018. Given the fact that capacities are limited, our mission gets support from the allies, through non-combat NATO mission, which is carried out by Greek and Italian “hunters”.
Mr Rodenbach explained that a total of 120 incidents related to the loss of communication had been recorded by the end of June in the territory of all member states.
“Euro-fighters” intercepted passenger aircraft in 2019
Aircraft of the Italian army carried out NATO mission above Montenegro for the first time on 9 April, when they intercepted passenger aircraft that had lost connection with the air traffic control.
Planes took off from “Goia del Colle” Italian military base, 20 km away from Bari.
“They were supposed to intercept civil plane that had lost communication with the civil controllers above Croatia. Two “Euro-fighters”, in charge of protecting the air space of NATO above Italy, Albania and Montenegro, successfully intercepted the plane only a couple of minutes later”, NATO reported then.
