© AFP 2015/ JALAA MAREY
According to the minister, the military communication channel between Russia and Israel was used to settle the situation.
"There was a minor mistake, and the pilot entered our airspace for 1.6 kilometers. We immediately contacted him, he changed his route and flew back to Syria," the minister said Sunday.
He did not say when the incident took place.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian and Israeli Air Forces were conducting trainings to maintain flight security over Syria. They also established a hotline for sharing information about flights in Syrian airspace.
"Since Russian jets are not going to bomb there is no need to shoot them down," Yaalon said.
"Just as we do not interfere in their mission in Syria so they create no problem for us with our flights," he pointed out.
He added that in accordance with the agreement on preventing collisions in the sky over Syria, Russia must notify Israel about its flights near the Israeli border.
"We established an open communication channel to avoid any collisions. They notify us when they fly near Golan Heights," Yaalon said.
One year before, September 23, 2014 :
Israeli officials said the plane was apparently intending to attack rebel forces fighting the Syrian army near the border with the Golan. However, it penetrated 800 meters into Israeli-held territory before starting to turn, according to officials. By that time, the ground-to-air missile had been fired. The plane’s pilot and navigator were seen to bail out but it was not clear if they had landed within the Syrian army lines or among the rebel forces.
An Israeli spokesman said that the plane could have been over the city of Tiberias in one minute if it had stayed on its original course and “anywhere else”—an apparent reference to Tel Aviv—in five minutes.
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