Dec 6, 2021: Moscow has said a U.S. plane threatened a civilian plane but the “crash” was averted when a Russian passenger plane dived to avoid a NATO spy plane crossing its course over the Black Sea.

Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said in a statement that a NATO CL600 spy plane with 142 people on board landed quickly on the route from Tel Aviv to the Moscow aeroflot service on Friday morning. The Aeroflot flight reportedly had to fall 500 meters (1,600 feet) to maintain its distance from the spy plane, which the pilots watched with open eyes from the cockpit.

A second plane, a smaller CL650 aircraft, flying from the Black Sea resort Sochi to Skopje, the capital of Northern Macedonia, also had to divert to avoid the spy plane, the Russian air transport authority said Saturday.

“The direction and altitude of the commercial flights were immediately altered” to avoid a collision, the agency said, adding that the unknown plane did not respond to radio hails from air traffic control.

Although the Federal Air Transport Agency did not say which country flew the spy plane, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova indicated on Sunday that the spy plane belonged to the United States. “The actions of the US Air Force pose a threat to civil aviation,” Zakharova said on the messaging app Telegram.

“Now that airspace destruction has been averted on the open waters of the Black Sea, it does not mean that the United States and NATO can endanger the lives of the people without exception.”

The Federal Air Transport Agency said it would file a diplomatic complaint.