Unusual visitor. Americans monitoring Poland–Russia border
An American Air Force flight, originating from Sicily and bound for Poland, was tracked by the Flightradar24 service. The aircraft was probably an RQ-4 Global Hawk, which is known to perform regular patrols over the Black Sea. On Tuesday, however, for several hours, it was observing Poland's border with Kaliningrad.
7:14 PM EDT, October 31, 2023
The unarmed American drone spent approximately 10 hours closely monitoring activities on the Polish border with Kaliningrad.
Such an occurrence has not been witnessed since March 2022. Flightradar24 recorded similar flights several times in the past. Notably, Tuesday's flight was about 47 miles away from the border while in March 2022, the flight was slightly further away, at a distance of approximately 78 miles.
RQ-4B Global Hawk over Poland
The American Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk drone is used for aerial reconnaissance and operates continuously for 24 hours, from an altitude of 65,617 feet, regardless of the weather conditions or time of day. The path traced by the unmanned vehicle can be tracked via the Flightradar service.
This drone is typically based at the Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily. Its principal assignment is to patrol the Black Sea.
The RQ-4B Global Hawk is an unmanned aerial reconnaissance system that gathers and transmits near-real-time data to support combined military forces in global peacekeeping, emergency handling, and warfare operations.
