A top secret RAF spy plane shown being threatened with destruction by a Russian fighter jet has been likened to an ‘electronic hoover’ because it sweeps up so much information. The giant ‘Rivet Joint’ was filmed being told to leave the Black Sea near Ukraine or it and two escorting RAF Typhoon fighter jets would be ‘destroyed’ by Vladimir Putin’s air arm. The tense encounter was captured on the approach to illegally annexed Crimea as the electronic surveillance aircraft gathered vital information about the Kremlin’s forces.

Crewed by around 30 RAF personnel and bristling with advanced surveillance technology, the Rivet Joint’s mission was so secret even the two RAF fighter pilots tasked with protecting it from harm and intimidation were not told of the objectives. The aircraft is considered ‘the eyes and ears of the battlefield’ and is thought to be relaying vital information to Ukrainian forces, possibly including intercepts from mobile phones used by Russian soldiers engaged in the all-out attack.

The RAF operates three of the 132ft-long spy planes which are considered an extension of the US Air Force’s own fleet. The jets are thought to owe their name to the Americans’ history of ‘rivet’ modifications to an airframe which can be traced back to the 1950s. On board, the atmosphere appears to be one of calm focus as crew including pilots, crypto linguists and electronic warfare operators go about their work at computer stations.

In radio small talk with one of the Typhoon escorts high over the Romanian coast, a pilot casually spoke about how the occupants had passed the time after taking off from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. ‘We’ve had a few 120m strolls, a bit of food, nice cup of coffee,’ he said. Asked by Flt Lt Josh what the coffee is like onboard, the unnamed pilot replied: ‘We have a selection — we have a Starbucks.

‘I’ve had some nice stuff from Yorkshire.’. Typhoon pilots Josh and Joe, of 11 Squadron based at RAF Coningsby, also in Lincolnshire, had made 500mph flights from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus to meet up with their ‘package’ over Romania. They flew alongside the ‘electronic hoover’ — as Flt Lt Josh described the eavesdropping aircraft — to protect it on the mission over the Black Sea. Ahead of the sortie, he said: ‘We know 100% that there’s going to be Russian surface-to-air missile systems that will be looking at us, Russian fighter jets. We don’t know what’s going to happen.’.

As they approached Crimea, a Russian message transmitted to all three RAF aircraft warned: ‘Ivory Eagle, Ivory Eagle, Ivory Eagle, Delta Echo Zemlya. You are approaching the state border of the Russian Federation combat zone. If you don’t leave, you will be destroyed.’. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.

Up Next. The British formation then had a crucial decision to make. The stakes at play were underscored in September 2022, when one of two Russian SU-27 jets released a missile in the vicinity of a Rivet Joint on routine patrol over the Black Sea. After a game of cat and mouse with the interceptor jet, the RAF formation turned around just short of the Crimean coast in the footage captured for Channel 4’s Top Guns: Inside the RAF.

Military analyst Sean Bell told Metro: ‘Obviously there’s a lot of very sensitive capability wrapped up in there but there’s a typical rule in that the West is providing weapons and capability to the Ukrainians while not getting directly involved. ‘However, platforms like the Rivet Joint that are the eyes and ears over the battlefield can look deep into Ukraine, can look into Russia and can listen and watch with a variety of sensors to work out what is going on. Undoubtedly that is being used to help Ukrainian forces in their war against the Russian invasion.’.

Bell, a former fighter pilot and Air Vice-Marshal, gave an insight into the sophisticated systems onboard the eavesdropping station. The capabilities were demonstrated in a milestone journey between NATO’s most southerly point in the Mediterranean to the Barents Sea in the High North last October, the first time one of the jets has flown the route. ‘I can only surmise what might be available on those aircraft, things like radar technology, listening on the radio waves,’ Bell said.

‘A good example of that is that Russia has been rife with corruption and they should have secure radios on the battlefield. ‘But if you haven’t got enough secure radios for everybody then you can’t use them at all because you can’t speak to everybody. ‘Russia has in the past not procured enough secure radios. ‘Some of the money appears to have been diverted elsewhere and therefore forces a lot of the Russian soldiers to revert to mobile phones or non-secure means. If you have the capability to listen to those means, then it allows you to find out what’s going on.’.