The Pentagon says a US military aircraft has had an emergency landing in a Russian airstrip near the Chinese border because of landing gear malfunction.
The incident occurred on Wednesday when the landing gear of OC-135B observation aircraft did not retract after it took off from a Russian airfield at Ulan Ude, in the Republic of Buryatia, for a scheduled observation flight, CNN reported on Friday.
The aircraft, which had also Russian crew, later flew on to Japan to be repaired.
Pentagon spokeswoman Michelle Baldanza told CNN that the US commander, in cooperation with the Russian escort crew on board diverted the aircraft to Khabarovsk “so the aircraft could exit Russia in the most direct route possible.”
“Due to aircraft performance limitations associated with summer temperatures and the landing gear malfunction, the Khabarovsk runway represented the only safe location to land,” he added.
According to the report, the Russian airfield is not normally…