WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. fighter jets scrambled to identify and intercept four Russian warplanes flying near Alaska, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said Thursday.

It’s the third time in about a month and the ninth time this year NORAD has reported such an incident involving Russian aircraft flying near Alaska. This latest incident happened Wednesday.

NORAD said in a statement issued early Thursday that it detected and tracked two Tu-95s and two Su-35s operating in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone.

Nine U.S. aircraft — an E-3 Sentry command and control aircraft, four F-16s and four KC-135 tankers — scrambled to positively identify and intercept the Russian jets, NORAD said.

The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canad

See Full Page