I have been following the various opinions expressed by a good number of readers of timesofmalta.com regarding the frequent landings of military fast jets in Malta during the present operation enforcing UN Resolution 1973.
As an observer of military matters and aviation in particular, I can assure readers that the last thing any pilot or operational planner wants is for his jet/s to have to divert while going to, or returning from, a mission. It still amazes me how some readers try to shed doubt on each landing of a military jet citing all sorts of “reasons”, some of them outrageously hostile.
A military “live” mission is planned to the very last detail with the aim of executing the mission and recovering the jet back to base as planned. Each time a fast jet lands in Malta during the present operations over Libya it is a sign that the pilot (and in most cases his/her superior) deems that it is safer to quickly land than to stay in the air. It could be for fuel reasons or it could be for mechanical reasons or for many other reasons. These are very complicated machines and they are flown in the safest possible way. Each diversion to Luqa exemplifies the correct attitude of putting safety, especially that of the pilot/s, first and foremost.
The attached picture shows just one example of an air-to-air refuelling process gone wrong during operations over Libya this week. While attempting to refuel from an airborne tanker, one of the fighters “lost” the front part of the refuelling nozzle (note the difference between the two nozzles) and aerial refuelling had to cease immediately.
With the jets suddenly running out of fuel the pilots had no choice but to immediately land at the first available airport before both jets run out of fuel and the pilots are forced to eject.
As I write, Nato is performing around 145 missions a day enforcing the no-Fly zone and some aircraft are bound to encounter problems during this high-tempo effort. Readers may be also interested to know that many diversions are occurring on a daily basis and Malta is only seeing a small percentage of them because, depending on the degree of emergency, the pilots have every reason to avoid Malta since their preference always remains to land at a Nato base that is much more equipped for such aircraft. The fact that they end up in Malta is only because they have no other alternative in order to save themselves and their jets.