A US F/A-18E Super Hornet monitoring a Russian Su-35 fighter jet suffered a failure of its Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera during a mission over Syria in 2017, the RAND Corporation, a California-based think tank doing research for the US military, has revealed in a report. This reported by Sputnik.

According to think tank, the sensor breakdown took place on 18 June 2017, when US fighters assigned to carry out a close air support (CAS) mission to assist US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) troops on the ground in northeast Syria got into a dogfight with a Syrian Su-22 fighter-bomber as it approached SDF positions.

“Even before the Syrian Su-22 Fitter arrived on scene, there was reason for the Navy pilots to consider potential air-to-air contingencies. First, Syrian regime ground forces were operating in proximity to the SDF, so just as coalition aircraft were overhead to provide support to their local partners, it was possible Syrian aircraft would be doing the same in support of pro-regime forces. In addition, a Russian Su-35 Flanker fighter aircraft arrived overhead and began circling the CAS stack,” the report indicated.

“The Russian jet was monitored by one of the F/A-18E Super Hornet pilots, who was having issues with his Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) sensor, which was critical for air-to-ground targeting. To make use of the Super Hornet’s other capabilities, the pilot switched to air-to-air master mode, tracking the Russian fighter, while the remaining three F/A-18 Hornets focused on the air-to-ground mission. It is worth highlighting that the sensor malfunction was just one of several issues encountered on the mission, but the pilots continued to adapt to meet the mission objectives,” it added.

The report does not elaborate on what these other “issues” were, but does admit  that the US aircraft “quickly exited Syrian airspace” amid fears that Syria may activate its air defences in retaliation to the shootdown of the Su-22.