An unidentified aircraft flew over several NATO countries, with its crew disappearing without a trace.
The mysterious aircraft was detected flying out of Lithuania and traversing the airspace of several other NATO member countries without any interference.
The aircraft departed from an undisclosed location in Lithuania on June 8, subsequently flying over Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, and Romania—all NATO countries except for Serbia.
Ultimately, the aircraft landed at an abandoned airport in Bulgaria, according to European officials. The plane was later found, but there was no trace of the crew, even though the aircraft’s engines were still warm when discovered.
Officials in several countries closely monitored this “ghost flight” on their screens. The U.S. Air Force, along with Hungary and Romania, dispatched military aircraft to track the mysterious plane at various points, but could not continue the pursuit once the unidentified aircraft entered Bulgarian airspace.
According to RT, the strange aircraft disrupted the airspace of European nations, failing to activate its transponder and refusing to respond to radio calls. Despite alarms being triggered in neighboring countries, Bulgarian officials assessed that the unidentified aircraft posed no threat. Romania’s military came to a similar conclusion.
It remains unclear exactly what type of aircraft this unidentified entity belongs to, as various reports suggest it could be either a Beechcraft twin-engine plane or a Piper PA-23 Aztec.
The Lithuanian news agency LRT.lt reported, citing now-inactive registration data, that the aircraft was a Piper PA-23 Aztec. The former owner of the aircraft, Bronius Zaronskis, informed LRT.lt that he could not provide information about the individuals who purchased the plane or the organization related to those individuals.
“They are not Lithuanians. I cannot say where they are from; they could be Ukrainians, Romanians, or Bulgarians. A man and I communicated in Russian… I do not know the names of those men. I do not care,” he said.
The former owner continued to share, “I sold and said goodbye to that plane. I had been trying to sell it for many years as there was nowhere to keep it, so I was very pleased when they bought it. I do not remember which organization purchased it. Their names were written in a foreign language.”
This mysterious flight over NATO countries comes amid heightened alertness across many European nations following the conflict in Ukraine. The EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) recently warned of increased risks to commercial aircraft in the region, related to potential misidentification of targets or other latent errors connected to confusion in war zones.
