{"id":18996,"date":"2016-04-13T22:37:33","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T22:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2016\/04\/13\/this-is-why-the-navy-didn-t-shoot-down-russian-jets\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:50:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:50:37","slug":"this-is-why-the-navy-didn-t-shoot-down-russian-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2016\/04\/13\/this-is-why-the-navy-didn-t-shoot-down-russian-jets\/","title":{"rendered":"This is why the Navy didn&#8217;t shoot down Russian jets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s note: This article was initially published at 6:37 p.m., EDT, on April 13 and has been updated.<\/em><br\/><br\/>Russian pilots rattled nerves aboard the destroyer Donald Cook,\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">this week after <\/span>\u200bbuzzing within yards of\u00a0the ship in the Baltic Sea.\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">flying multiple low passes close to the ship<\/span>\u200bProvocative, sure. But they weren&#8217;t a\u00a0credible threat.\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">While annoying, a former surface warfare skipper told Navy Times, that doesn&#8217;t amount to a credible threat, and that&#8217;s why Cook&#8217;s commanding officer made the right choice to not engage.<\/span>\u200b<br\/><br\/>So concludes a retired Navy commanding officer, who reviewed photos and videos from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.navytimes.com\/story\/military\/2016\/04\/13\/russian-su-24-attack-aircraft-us-navy-destroyer-donald-cook-baltic-sea\/82979184\/\">run-ins on Monday and Tuesday<\/a>, when <span class=\"rte rte-comment\">Over the course of two days,\u00a0twice an <\/span>\u200bunarmed Sukhoi Su-24 fighters\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">jet <\/span>\u200bflew within 1,000 feet of the ship \u2014\u00a0once coming as close as 30 feet in what U.S. officials called &#8220;simulated attacks.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">and just 30 feet above the water, totaling about 30 passes,\u00a0a defense official told Military Times on Wednesday.\u00a0And <\/span>\u200bOn Monday, a low-flying Russian Ka-27 Helix helicopter also appeared to take photos of the ship<span class=\"rte rte-comment\">, he said<\/span>\u200b.\u00a0<br\/><br\/><span class=\"rte rte-comment\">Cmdr. Charles Hampton, the Donald Cook&#8217;s CO, characterized the &#8220;simulated attacks&#8221; as &#8220;unsafe and unprofessional,&#8221; the official added.\u00a0<\/span>\u200b<br\/><br\/><span class=\"notes\">While the flybys were <\/span>&#8220;Well, we\u2019re not at war with Russia,&#8221; Capt. Rick Hoffman said. &#8220;It would be one thing to be operating and have a threatening attack profile from someone who might not recognize me \u2014 that\u2019s not the case here.&#8221;<br\/><br\/><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you have visual identification of the jet, can see it isn&#8217;t carrying weapons, and don&#8217;t detect any electronic emissions suggesting there was a missile lock<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ed<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200b on the ship, there&#8217;s nothing to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And ultimately,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">the<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200bthe rules of engagement allow the CO to take defensive action if they feel they safety of their vessel is in danger, according to U.S. European Command spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez told Navy Times. In\u00a0this case the CO did not feel threatened, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">put the CO in charge of how to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;You don\u2019t get to kill people just because they\u2019re being annoying,&#8221; said Hoffman, who commanded frigate DeWert and cruiser Hue City. Cruisers are the fleet&#8217;s foremost air defense platform and are tasked with guarding flattops from incoming threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There&#8217;s a possibility that the<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, the defense official said, the<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200b&#8221;simulated attack&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">posture<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200bmight violate a 1973 treaty between the U.S. and Russia that deals with this behavior<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">, and might prompt the U.S. to file a formal complaint with the country<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200b.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Otherwise, Hoffman added, it just amounts to showboating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Only in &#8216;Top Gun&#8217; does a war suddenly break out between two airplanes that is completely not related to something going on ashore,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To be sure,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the other hand,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200bthe rules might be different in another situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Russia is still an ally and<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200bThe Baltic Sea is not a contested area of responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We would probably not have accepted that from an Iranian aircraft in the Persian Gulf, although we\u2019ve seen it,&#8221; Hoffman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Or if it had been a civilian aircraft, he added, the CO would have been<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">much<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200bmore on guard for a potential suicide mission.\u00a0But the likelihood that a rogue Russian pilot would take a shot at an American ship and then try to fly home through the airspace of multiple NATO partners is very low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s more likely that the stunt will end up as a public relations tool for Russian President Vladimir Putin, showing force against the Americans operating in his backyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;It would be real interesting to see what shows up in the Russian papers in the morning, how they play it,&#8221; Hoffman said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not that different from North Korea. He does something and then he plays it domestically however he needs to play it for the purposes of getting his people energized.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Provocative, sure. But a former Navy commanding officer explains why the Russian fighters weren&#8217;t a credible threat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":70,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12,70],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3301],"class_list":["post-18996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-army"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"B6O6IUS75ZDKRHLGJPKBOWMSHU","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-navy\/2016\/04\/13\/this-is-why-the-navy-didn-t-shoot-down-russian-jets\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>This is why the Navy didn&#039;t shoot down Russian jets - Army Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Provocative, sure. 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