A NUMBER of fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a Ryanair flight that temporarily lost all contact with air traffic control at the weekend, it has emerged.
Ryanair flight FR-9525 took off from Lublin Airport in Poland on Saturday night bound for Stansted when it suffered a radio communications failure around two hours into the flight.
Two F16 fighter jets on Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) were sent by the Belgian Air Force (BAF) to intercept the Ryanair plane, according to the BAF's Twitter page.
The BAF tweeted video footage on Sunday from the previous night's interception, writing: "Last night 2 #F16 Quick reaction Alert took off from Kleine-Brogel Air Base for a civilian airliner that had lost all contact with air traffic control.
NEWS @BeAirForce - Last night 2 #F16 on Quick reaction Alert took off from Kleine-Brogel Air Base for a civilian airliner that had lost all contact with air traffic control. Once radio contact was re-established, jets returned to homebase around midnight. Protecting your security pic.twitter.com/9CdhDmwvKg
— Belgian Air Force🇧🇪 (@BeAirForce) February 11, 2018
"Once radio contact was re-established, jets returned to homebase around midnight. Protecting your security".
RAF Typhoon fighter jets were also scrambled but both the British and Belgian aircraft were stood down when the airliner resumed contact after around half an hour of radio silence.
A spokesman for Ryanair told The Irish Post: “This flight from Lublin (10 Feb) landed normally at Stansted airport.”
It is not yet clear what caused the radio malfunction.
