Croatian MIGs chased a 60-year-old JNA plane that landed in Sinj?! A situation that caused NATO to turn on the alarm…

Croatian MIGs, which make up NATO’s fighter pair, were launched in pursuit of the “Galeb” plane that flew from Slovenia to Croatia.

The “Galeb G-2” plane, a former training-combat two-seater of the JNA, took off from Brnik Airport in Ljubljana and was moving at low altitude towards Sinj.

The competent NATO command in Spain has been informed, which raised Croatian MIGs in pursuit of the “seagull”.

The Croatian Ministry of Defense does not comment on this occasion, and ” Slobodna Dalmatia” claims, citing unofficial information, that the MiGs took off because the jet plane changed its course several times and thus became extremely suspicious, and the flight control began to ” descends” all flight zones that sport airports have declared flyable on that day.

The same thing happened in Sinj, where gliders were reported flying and their flight zone was “taken away” while the gliders were still in the air.

“Free Dalmatia” claims that the almost 60-year-old “seagull” (produced in 1966) and worth about 60,000 euros was operated by the pilot Pero Matas and his friend, who “traded” it with the Slovenian owner for a Cessna.

According to the flight plan, which was registered according to all the rules, it was supposed to land at the airport of Brac to complete all the necessary customs and other procedures for entering the country, and then the “seagull” was planned to go to Sinj.

But after taking off from Slovenia, an unforeseen situation occurred, Matas claims.

“It was nothing terrible, simply when we entered the Croatian airspace, we ran out of electricity in the plane and all devices that work on electricity failed, so we didn’t even have radio communication. We went off the radar, became invisible under our control, and that’s what caused the problem. The power went out about ten minutes after takeoff, but at one point it turned on and it was working. Then it shut down again and none of the instruments worked and we had no radio communication. “Luckily, I brought the hand-held radio connection, which is quite small, and somewhere near Vrlica I called Sinj that we will land and move everything from the runway,” said pilot Pero Matas.

He says that the decision to land in Sinj was logical, because there is the least traffic there, and therefore the least risk.

“We had no airbrake due to a system failure and we couldn’t predict what the landing would be like. We didn’t see the MiGs at all, nor did we know about them because we were flying quite low and they were at a much higher altitude. It wasn’t until we landed in Sinj that they started joking with me that I was coming like the Pope, that I was being followed by MIGs. And I was amazed, what MiGs? said Matas (69), who has been flying for 30 years.

He mentions that the plane they took in Slovenia was inspected before the flight, everything was according to the regulations and in order, but that “it didn’t fly for two years and it just happened in the air”.

“I have to point out that we were on the track all the time, we didn’t change it, maybe a little height, but that’s not important. The fact is that we landed with a defective plane without a mistake,” says the pilot, who is the only one in Croatia, together with his friend, who has a license to operate this type of aircraft.

The “seagull” they flew in from Slovenia is currently the only one of its kind in Croatia, and it is expected to be officially registered soon.