The Royal Air Force will be on high alert from now until the 25th of December to track an unregistered cargo flight from the Arctic region.

The aircraft is understood to have behavioural intelligence-gathering capabilities of the type that can sort British citizens into a ‘list’, determining their behaviour over the last year.

The move has been prompted by an incident around a year ago in which Typhoon aircraft escorted a Lapland-registered aircraft over the UK’s major cities early on the morning of the 25th. The pilot of the craft was said to be under the influence of alcohol and very “festive”, this is especially dangerous due to the sheer volume of cargo the aircraft was carrying.

Ministry of Defence spokesman C. Cringle had this to say:

“Interception is part of what the QRA force do. We have to identify and confirm who or what is flying through our airspace or approaching our airspace and since the craft appears at the same time each year, we have a fairly good idea who will be flying but we don’t take any chances.”

This is expected to happen again towards the end of next month from the 24th through to the 25th.

The Ministry of Defence previously used satellites with infrared sensors to track the aircraft last time this happened, it is understood that the heat from an animal’s red nose was clearly visible and it was at this point RAF aircraft began escorting the jet over every British city, town and village.

More on this as it develops. We expect more updates on the 25th of December.

Everyone could use a bit of festive cheer, we hope this article has given you some of that.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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20 COMMENTS

  2. Also done by NORAD and US Space Command separately of each other. Santa isn’t unknown or a potential threat. His trajectory is always too slow for ICBM threat initiation and in the AD world he probably has filed a flight plan!
    Of course the USAF/ NORAD Santa tracker show him heading towards North America rather than Europe first!

    • Now you say that but as we all remember from our younger years. That naughty list can be changed right up to the last minute l, which is why it’s important for the younglings to go bed Christmas Eve when told to.

      Invariably there will be some found to be in non compliance with the knock on effect that any previously submitted flight plan is at risk of being wildly inaccurate. Add to that said craft is on the larger size and you’re always gonna run the risk of it being misidentified by those tracking such things when see a return signal annoyingly similar to a Tu-95. You’d hope that FoF or even ADS-D or B would clear that up but whoever that Finnish p**shead is, he has a tendency to turn off any and all transponders resulting in a gap in initial ID

      Wellllllll. If we’re gonna play this game this early then I might as well roll with it eh

  4. Thank goodness. I was being to worry about my grandchildren rabbiting on about the North Pole, so they are safe then? One question George. You mention C Cringle. Is this a recognised form of pronoun address and are we aware yet of whether this Artic threat is binary or gender problematic or just hypersonic given what it has to achieve? Answers on a mince pie to…..😇😋

  8. Much against my will, I have been good this year, so I was hoping for Santa, but I fear he will miss Britain as it is closed due to strikes.

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