The Air Force’s incident response team is ready around the clock to go up at short notice and identify and investigate foreign objects around Sweden’s border.
It was such a mission on Sunday that attracted a lot of attention yesterday.
– We needed to go at the highest possible speed in order to get to the right place at the right time and when you broke the sound barrier it led to a so-called sound bang, says the air force’s head of operations Jörgen Axelsson.
Was a routine mission
He does not want to go into any details about what triggered the operation, or where it took place. However, he says that there was no violation of the Swedish border.
– I don’t want to go into the details of this specific case, what made us start the incident response, says Jörgen Axelsson, who says that it is a matter of a routine mission.
After the operation, the Swedish Armed Forces received criticism for lack of clarity in the communication surrounding the operation, which, among other things, The Express lift in news spot.
Now the government has called in the Armed Forces with questions about the communication regarding the air force’s incident preparedness.
“This morning I spoke with the Swedish Armed Forces about how they look at developing communication around this further, and about the balance between secrecy and transparency,” states Minister of Defense Pål Jonson (M) in a comment.
Not communicating everything
Even Jonson describes the incident, after the conversation with the Armed Forces, as routine.
“The operation that the Air Force’s incident response carried out on Sunday over the Baltic Sea involved events that are within the normal picture. It’s good that we have an incident response team that is ready to quickly take off whenever needed for missions to protect Swedish airspace and investigate airlines in our immediate area,”
From the air force’s side, they say about the communication:
– We don’t communicate every launch we do, but it’s a normal day at work for our fighter pilots, air traffic controllers, technicians, etc., says Jörgen Axelsson.