Moment Russian fighter crashes into US drone in international airspace over the Black Sea 

This is the moment a Russian Su-27 jet collided midair with a US MQ-9 over the Black Sea.

Drone camera footage released by the US air force captures the moment a Russian fighter clipped its propeller and dumped fuel over it in international airspace on 14 March 2023.

US forces had to bring the drone down in international waters after the collision. 

This follows Russian claims its jet did not make contact with the $32 million drone, instead blaming ‘sharp maneuvering’ for the crash. 

Released footage shows the moment a Russian fighter dumped fuel on an American drone

In the first direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S. since the start of the war in Ukraine, a Russian Su-27 warplane struck an unmanned MQ-9 aircraft, forcing operators to ditch the drone into the Black Sea.

‘It probably sank to some significant depths, so any recovery operation from a technical standpoint would be very difficult,’ Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told reporters.

‘We know that the intercept was intentional. We know that the aggressive behavior was intentional,’ Milley said, although it was unclear whether the collision itself was deliberate.

Even so, the incident over international waters has triggered fears that such a mistake or misunderstanding could spark an escalation in hostilities.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said he spoke to his Russian counterpart on Wednesday in their first call since October.

‘I just got off the phone with my Russian counterpart, Minister Shoigu,’ Austin said at a Pentagon press briefing.

‘As I’ve said repeatedly, it’s important that great powers be models of transparency and communication, and the United States will continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows.’

Russia said it made clear in the call that it sees things differently and that U.S. aerial operations in the region are a threat.

‘It was noted that flights by American strategic lethal drones by the Crimea coastline were provocative in nature and created pre-conditions for an escalation of the situation in the Black Sea zone,’ the defense ministry statement said after Shoigu’s telephone conversation with Austin.

Earlier the Kremlin said it would try to retrieve the remains of the drone.

The drone’s camera stabilises after the SU-27 passes overhead, clipping its propeller

According to US officials the MQ-9 Reaper drone was intercepted by two Russian Su-27 jets that dumped fuel on top of the drone before clipping its propeller, forcing it to crash

‘I don’t know whether we will be able to retrieve it or not, but that it has to be done. And we’ll certainly work on it. I hope, of course, successfully,” Kremlin Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev told the Rossiya-1 TV channel,’ according to Reuters.

However, Milley played down the prospect of losing sensitive technology. He said it had gone down in four or five thousand feet of water.

‘We don’t have any ships there. But we do have a lot of allies and friends in the area that will work through recovery operations,’ he said.

‘That’s U.S. property, and we’ll leave it at that at this point.

‘But it probably broke up. There’s probably not a lot to recover, frankly,

‘As far as the loss of anything sensitive … intelligence etc … as normal we would take — and we did take mitigating measures — so we are quite confident that whatever was of value is no longer of value.’

The Sukhoi Su-27 is a Soviet twin-engine fighter in operation since 1977.

It is used by the Russian Air Force, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force of China, and others.