ROMANIA — On October 17, two Romanian Air Force F-16 aircraft on air policing missions scrambled from the 86th Air Base Borcea at 5:43 PM local time (2:43 PM UTC) after radar systems detected a group of aerial targets approximately 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Snake Island, heading southwest, the Romanian Ministry of Defense stated.
The first target entered Romanian airspace at 5:59 PM local time and was shot down at 6:01 PM local time by one of the F-16 aircraft.
A second target entered at 6:01 PM local time and was shot down at 6:05 PM local time by the other F-16 aircraft. Both targets were identified as drones and were shot down over Romanian territorial waters, the ministry said.
In a later update, the ministry stated that the neutralized targets were attack drones from the Geran family with jet propulsion. The first was shot down southeast of Sulina after two minutes in national airspace, and the second east of Sulina after five minutes in national airspace.
