NORAD, Russian forces wrap up VIGILANT EAGLE

The storyline seemed to come straight from a Cold War suspense thriller as NORAD forces working with their counterparts in the Russian Federation tracked a “hijacked” aircraft across the Pacific Ocean, but this was no movie.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command and the Russian Federation completed the first joint 3-day exercise designed to establish clear communication processes that would allow the two forces to work together during a real crisis.

The exercise, VIGILANT EAGLE, was an international air terrorism scenario exercised over the Pacific Ocean consisting of forces from the U.S. and Russia responding to the simulated hijacking of a B-757 en route to the Far East.

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