Russian Flight Planning
15/01/22
RU675
B747-8
AirBridgeCargo Airlines
A large Russian cargo plane took an lengthy, unexpected and unexplained route over central and southern Finland on Saturday night, passing over Finland's Air Force headquarters and a military intelligence unit.
According to military and security experts interviewed by Yle, the reason for the flight's detour may have been either a protest by Russia or an intelligence-gathering mission as political tensions in the Baltic region continue to escalate.
The cargo plane took off from Moscow at about 7.26pm Finnish time on Saturday evening and flew towards the city of Murmansk in northwestern Russia. However, the flight turned over the White Sea, a southern inlet of the Barents Sea, at roughly the latitude of the city of Oulu and instead flew to the German city of Leipzig.
The plane's route therefore took it over Finland from Suomussalmi in the east to Turku in the southwest, passing Tikkakoski near the city of Jyväskylä, where the Finnish Air Force headquarters and part of the Finnish Defense Forces' intelligence department are located. The cargo plane also passed close to the Halli military airport in Jämsä, Central Finland.