“An un-named US official said that armed F-22 Raptor fighters scrambled again Friday as Russian Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear” bombers headed for the second time toward Hawaii as part of an ongoing Russian naval and air exercise several hundred miles west of the Aloha State,” the Hawaiian Star-Advertiser reports.
“Two of the Hawaii Air National Guard stealth fighters took off from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and did not intercept the Russian turboprops, which likely, as before, did not continue on a path toward Hawaii, according to an account of the launch. “Pacific Air Forces regularly perform air operations in airspace surrounding Hawaii. As a matter of policy, we don’t discuss tactics, techniques or procedures used by U.S. Air Force aircraft due to operational security requirements,” the Oahu-based command said Friday evening in an email.”
“Three F-22s and a KC-135 were launched last Sunday when Russian Bear bombers were first spotted taking a similar directional approach to Hawaii. In the earlier event, the Russian planes, which also can have an anti-submarine warfare role, never came close to Hawaii’s Air Defense Identification Zone. The Russian aircraft are “at least going out far enough (from an airbase) that it required the F-22s to be scrambled,” according to an official.”