The Swiss Air Force will be on standby 24/7 from Thursday, when two F/A-18 fighter jets will be ready to take off, fully armed, within 15 minutes. The pilots spent nearly a month practising night-time aerial manoeuvres in Britain.
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Força aérea suíça está finalmente de prontidão a qualquer hora
Calls for greater readiness on the part of the air force have existed for years, but they became front-page news in 2014 when a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane landed in Geneva at about 6am.
While Italian and French military aircraft were scrambled to accompany the plane, Switzerland couldn’t deploy any jets and intervene because the air force only worked during office hours (8am-12pm and 1.30pm-5pm).
The drama ended without bloodshed but the Swiss became a laughing stock around the world.
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Air Force working hours to be discussed
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The upgrade would cost an additional CHF30 million ($34 million) a year, Maurer said on Wednesday. Swiss air traffic control company Skyguide would also have to make adjustments so that around-the-clock readiness is possible. This would be the case from 2018 at the earliest, he added. The issue arose on Monday when a hijacked Ethiopian…
The then defence minister, Ueli Maurer, blamed a lack of money for the inability to guarantee round-the-clock protection of Swiss airspace.
Since the beginning of 2019 the jets have been on standby from 6am to 10pm.
‘Hot missions’
The two armed aircraft will mainly be used for “hot missions” and “live missions”, the Swiss Army said in a statementExternal link on Tuesday. The former are triggered by aircraft that violate Switzerland’s air sovereignty or air traffic regulations. Live missions are random checks of foreign state aircraft, which are only allowed to fly over Switzerland with diplomatic clearance.
Fifteen hot missions and 290 live missions have been carried out so far in 2020, the army said.
In a separate statementExternal link, the army explained that “to be optimally prepared for round-the-clock operational readiness”, night-flying exercises had been carried out between November 24 and December 18 in Yorkshire, northern England, with 40 pilots, 70 ground crew and ten F/A-18 aircraft from the Swiss Air Force.
The Swiss pilots and their colleagues from the Royal Air Force (RAF) had practised flight manoeuvres over the North Sea during darkness, without night flight restrictions.
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The move to 24/7 air coverage required about 100 additional positions and will cost some CHF30 million ($34 million) a year, the army said. This amount is mainly made up of personnel costs, air traffic control costs and operating costs.
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Should new jets or neighbours defend Swiss skies?
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In the early hours of February 16 an Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane bound for Rome was hijacked. Seeking asylum in Switzerland, the co-pilot flew the plane further northwest. The airliner was intercepted by Italian Eurofighter jets, then handed over to the French Air Force before it landed at Geneva airport. The Swiss Air Force did…
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On several occasions in the past when Swiss air space was breached, the Swiss air force was unable to act because its pilots were off duty. That was the case in February 2014 when an Ethiopian Airlines pilot took full control of his aircraft, while his co-pilot was in the toilet. The man diverted the…
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