The aviation industry revolves around safety, and whenever any unusual occurrence takes place, the whole industry comes to one guard. Recently, an incident of a similar nature made the news when an unnamed aircraft that allegedly took off from Lithuania entered the airspaces of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania in an illegal way before it finally landed in Bulgaria. It has been reported that all of these countries fall under NATO except Serbia. However, the pressing concern is that when this dubious plane made its way to landing in Bulgaria, there was no crew – not a single person on board.
According to Lithuanian news, the aircraft was identified by the registration number “LY-LOO” after landing, and the interesting thing to note is that it’s the same number as the “1962 PA-23-250 Aztec aircraft manufactured by Piper Aircraft,” which is inoperative now. Moreover, the aircraft is a twin-engine, two-seat Beechcraft, as per European media. A lot of efforts were made by different countries to take over the plane, but all in vain.
The U.S. Air Force and the Romanian Air Force each deployed their two F-16 jets, while the Hungarian Air Force got its two Gripens for intercepting the plane and establishing visual and radio contact with it. However, the aircraft not only ignored these calls (as it was flying by breaking its connection with the transponder) but also flew at a much lower altitude than that prescribed for the normal flight, which made it difficult for the fighter jets to chase it smoothly. But the shady aircraft didn’t pose any threat to the civil or military configurational structures, as per the Bulgarian Ministry of Defence.
Coupled with this, the investigations disclosed that the pilot and director of Nida Air Park, Mr. Bronius Zaronskis, in Lithuania, had recently sold the aircraft to a confidential organization. According to them, three unknown foreign men came into his shop for the examination of this aircraft, and one of them was speaking in Russian with him. But unfortunately, he couldn’t document their details along with the names.
Bronius Zaronskis further stated, “They were not Lithuanians. I can not say which country they were from. Maybe Ukrainians, maybe Romanians, or Bulgarians. One man and I communicated with each other in Russian. I don’t know the names of these men. I wasn’t interested. I sold it and said goodbye to that plane. I tried to sell it for many years. I had nowhere to put it, so I am glad that they bought it. I don’t remember which organization bought it. It was written in a foreign language.”
Based on all the shreds of evidence, it seems that the matter is spooky. If we see the pattern, then the incident happened when the Russia-Ukraine war was still ongoing and one of those three dubious men was also speaking in Russian. As of now, no verdict can be given till further investigations. Authorities are making efforts to get a clear understanding of these vague happenings, and better results are expected soon.
