The US Air Force has published a graphic map of the locations and approximate time of the collision between the MQ-9 Reaper drone and the Russian fighter jet, The Guardian and CNN report.

An MQ-9 Reaper drone shot down a Russian planePhoto: ABACA / Abaca Press / Profimedia

US Air Forces in Europe said on Twitter that “the points on the map are the approximate location of the incident” and are not to scale.

The first images of the interception of an American drone by Russian aircraft

Also on Thursday, the US military released images of Russian planes that intercepted a Reaper drone over the Black Sea two days ago, leading to the plane’s crash.

The roughly 40-second video, declassified by the Pentagon, was edited by the US military for length, but shows events in chronological order, the Pentagon said.

The footage shows a Sukhoi 27 jet approaching and passing the MQ-9 drone, leaving two jets of fuel.

Then the same plane or a pair of them perform the same maneuver and come even closer to the US surveillance drone, after which the image transmission is interrupted, possibly due to physical contact between the planes.

The final footage shows one of the propeller blades bent, suggesting that the Americans were right when they said there was contact between the Su-27 and the Reaper, and the Russians lied when they said their aircraft did not touch the drone.

It will be recalled that a Russian fighter jet caused the crash of a US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday. The Reaper drone and two SU-27 Flanker aircraft operated over international waters over the Black Sea.

The US European Command said two Russian Su-27 fighter jets conducted an “unsafe and unprofessional interception” of a US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone operating in international airspace over the Black Sea.

  • “Around 07:03, one of the Russian Su-27 aircraft hit the MQ-9’s propeller, resulting in the downing of the MQ-9 by US forces in international waters.
  • “Several times before the collision, the Su-27 jettisoned fuel and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a careless and unprofessional manner,” the source said.

Russia has rejected U.S. accusations that its planes acted recklessly in Tuesday’s incident over the Black Sea and said the drone was flying near Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, on its way to territory claimed by Russia. Russia also claimed that the drone made a “sudden maneuver” and crashed, insisting that there was no contact between the plane and the drone.