Airspace violations

Military and civilian airspace violations are a common occurrence since the early days of aviation – literally. In fact, the first supposed incident where national air space was violated occurred in 1904 when some Imperial Russian soldiers shot down a German airplane leading to a diplomatic roe between the two countries.

Hence, Italy based David Cenciotti is posting a series of articles on his blog that were written by Simone Bovi about military and civilian airspace violations that actually make for an interesting read by anyone who is a fan of aviation history (The entire series of detailed articles will be made available in one section of his blog).

The first article posted is about USAAF violations of Yugoslavian airspace at the beginning of the Cold War. Apparently, USAAF aircraft made it a habit to enter a portion of Yugoslavian airspace in order to avoid lengthening their route as well as to avoid bad weather. This ultimately led to a plane being shot down with the lost of its entire crew and a serious diplomatic incident between the two countries that is largely forgotten about today. The article is a fascinating read and if the rest of the series is just like this one, it will be well worth bookmarking the page and periodically checking back to read the latest article in the series.