Russian military jet in 'near miss' with passenger plane

A Russian intelligence jet nearly collided with a passenger plane belonging to the Scandinavian airline SAS over the Baltic Sea last week, according to Swedish officials.

The commercial flight, taking off from Copenhagen airport on Friday, was ordered to change course as soon as the military plane was detected, said Sweden's defence minister Peter Hultqvist.

The Russian plane had allegedly turned off its transponders in order to avoid commercial radar, which Hultqvist said was "serious, inappropriate and downright dangerous".

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He told reporters: "It is remarkable and very serious. There is a risk of accidents that could ultimately lead to deaths."

However, Major General Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian defence ministry, said the two planes were never less than 42 miles apart.

Konashenkov said the military plane had been complying with the rules and was at a safe distance from civilian air passenger routes, reports The Independent.

"There were no prerequisites for an air accident," he said in a statement.

The incident comes after Finland's aviation authorities had to order a civilian aircraft to change course last week to avoid a group of Russian military aircraft flying over the Baltic Sea without their transponders on.

In another more serious incident in March, a Russian plane – again without transponders – was said to have come within 100 metres of an SAS plane outside Copenhagen.

The West has accused Russia of increasing its military presence in the area amid tensions over Ukraine, while Russia has accused Nato of upping its air patrols along Russian borders. Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Lithuania have all raised concerns about the situation in the Baltic Sea.

Nato officials indicated in late October that its states had already conducted over 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft this year, three times more than in 2013.

A report by London-based think tank, the European Leadership Network, said there had been a rise in close military encounters between Russia and the West this year, including "violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea, simulated attack runs and other dangerous actions happening on a regular basis over a very wide geographical area".