Iran had said that one of its airliners, flying from Tehran to Beirut on Thursday, was “harassed” by fighter jets, but later landed safely in Lebanon. A U.S. official confirmed a U.S. jet had passed by the Iranian airliner, but at a safe distance.
According to media sources, two fighter jets came within a distance of 100 meters (328 feet) of the Iranian Airbus A310. The pilot of Mahan Air Flight 1152 quickly took the aircraft to a lower altitude to avoid a collision, the report said. The sharp maneuver caused slight injuries among some of the passengers.
He added that inspection was meant to ensure the safety of U.S. coalition troops in al-Tanf in Syria as the plane was flying over that area. He said once the aircraft was identified as a passenger plane, “the F-15 safely opened distance from the aircraft.”
Aircraft at that altitude are to maintain a distance of at least 600 meters (2,000 feet) to ensure they don’t hit each other, though planes traveling that close can encounter wake turbulence.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said Friday that what happened was an act of “lawlessness upon lawlessness.”
However, U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a Central Command spokesman, told The Associated Press that a U.S. F-15 fighter jet “conducted a standard visual inspection” of the Iranian plane “at a safe distance of approximately 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) from the airliner.”
