Hijack exercise a first

OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN – In a historic first for Cold War adversaries, U.S., Canadian and Russian military officers directed fighter jets and ground controllers to test how well they could track an international terrorist hijacking over the Pacific Ocean.

A chartered American jet code-named Fencing 1220 sent a mock distress signal shortly after taking off from Anchorage, Alaska, on Sunday, triggering a pursuit by at least seven fighters and a flurry of radio and telephone calls between military and civilian officials on both sides of the Pacific.

The Associated Press had exclusive access to Fencing 1220, a plush executive-style Gulfstream whose passengers included a Russian Air Force colonel and a senior commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the joint U.S.-Canadian command that patrols the skies over North America.

Their goal: to ensure that two militaries still distrustful of each other can work effectively tackling a terror threat that worries both nations.

One question that arose Sunday was just how much information they need – from the ground, from the fighters, from the hijacked pilots and from the terrorists – and whether fewer, simpler messages might be better than the flood of communication the exercise generated.

Canadian Forces Col. Todd Balfe, the deputy commander of NORAD’s Alaska region, acknowledged it may seem “incongruous” that the exercise was taking place amid tension between his country and Russia over recent Russian bomber flights probing the northern boundaries of Canadian airspace. But with al-Qaida at the front of North American minds and Russia dealing with threats from Chechen rebels, terrorism transcends national boundaries, and exercises like this could lay the foundation for cooperating on other issues as well, Balfe said.

Even veteran officers aboard the Gulfstream were struck by the unprecedented cooperation the exercise required and the breathtaking sight of fighter jets so near that the pilots’ helmets were clearly silhouetted against the bright blue sky.

“I’m kind of in awe,” said U.S. Army Maj. Michael Humphreys, the senior American officer on Fencing 1220 and a spokesman for NORAD. “It was a remarkably well-planned and well-executed exercise.”

It is only half over. The plane will fly back to Alaska later this week, again pursued by fighter jets and tracked by controllers on the ground and in the air.

The intricate exercise began about 10 minutes after the Gulfstream took off from Alaska. Its civilian pilots sent an agreed-upon digital distress code, 5475, to civilian air traffic controllers in the U.S. to signal that the plane had been “hijacked.”

NORAD then dispatched two F-22s and an E-3 Sentry – an airborne surveillance and command post – to shadow the plane.

The Gulfstream was still over Alaska at about 38,000 feet when the angular, silver F-22s drew alongside, about 10 minutes after the hijack signal. They edged to within 500 feet and after about 30 minutes, they turned back to refuel and didn’t return.

On the ground and in the air, commanders at NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., and civilian aviation officials in Alaska were communicating with their Russian counterparts. About two hours after the F-22s fell back, while the Gulfstream was over the Pacific, NORAD officers aboard the E-3 Sentry radioed their counterparts on a Russian surveillance and command post plane that Fencing 1220 was theirs to follow.

Two Russian Su-27 fighters soon pulled up from behind the Gulfstream and hovered off its right side. They shadowed the Gulfstream for about 90 minutes before banking sharply to the left and peeling away.

Three other Russian fighters, a MiG-31 and two Su-27s, later shadowed the Gulfstream during the 7  1/2-hour flight. All the fighters were unarmed, a condition of the exercise.

“To see those Russian fighters pull up right on time, to hear the Russians (talking on the radio), it’s just incredible,” the U.S. Army’s Humphreys said.