The surreal encounter, straight out of a high-octane action movie, involved a U.S. F-22 Raptor stealth fighter intercepting and repelling two Iranian F-4 Phantom combat planes over the Persian Gulf. The incident occurred in March 2013, as tensions were growing and cat-and-mouse games in international air space were intensifying.
According to previous revelations by Pentagon Press Secretary George Little, an Iranian F-4 Phantom attempted to intercept a routine flight of a US MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle on a surveillance mission. The Iranian jets closed 16 miles from the UAV before being driven off by two American planes escorting the UAV. It was four months since a similar incident occurred in 2012 when two Iranian Su-25 attack planes attempted, but failed, to shoot down an American MQ-1 drone.
This compelled the Pentagon to confirm its plan of offering fighter jet escorts for drones to be used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. These fighter escorts will include F-18 Hornets deployed from the USS John C. Stennis and also F-22 Raptors that have been deployed to Al Dhafra in the UAE.
Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh just publicly disclosed for the first time details of the encounter that took place in 2013. The fighter jets that were accompanying the plane as escort for High-Value Air Asset Escort, or HVAAE, were indeed F-22 stealth fighters. Welsh quotes the incident: “The Raptor pilot flew under the Iranian aircraft to check out their weapons load without them knowing he was there, then pulled up on their left wing and radioed, ‘You really ought to go home.”
It’s a scene pretty much like where Maverick and Goose tease those Russian MiG-28s in the film “Top Gun.” The way the Raptor could sneak on undetected to such a close point on the Iranians’ Phantoms says an awful lot for the stealth attributes of the airframe. Unknown whether the F-22 ran its radar at the time for this intercept, or was this aircraft was ectored in by the AWACS.
The situation did not worsen since the American pilot managed to scald off the Iranian aircraft before the latter came into the danger zone of the drone. The incident was in a series, that showcased and proved what the F-22 Raptor was capable of doing along with the level of how modern incidents happen in the air.
The photo below is a picture of the IRIAF F-4E Phantom landing at Tehran, Mehrabad International Airport in March 2013 just in time around the date of the intercept.
Those Phantoms often conduct overwatch along the Persian Gulf, generally armed with AIM-9P and AIM-7E air-to-air missiles proof that there’s always alertness by both parties within this unsafe zone.
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