THE United States Airforce has issued an apology to Scots after low-flying US fighter jets caused a "disturbance" on Thursday evening.
Scots were left bemused after two reportedly American fighter jets flew low passes over the central belt.
The website flightradar showed that there were multiple US fighters over the UK on Thursday evening.
One, a McDonnell Douglas F-15E Eagle, was tracked flying over Scotland before heading south over the Border. More recently, it was circling east of Peterborough, England.
A second Boeing F-15 Eagle has been circling west of Norwich for some time.
Twitter user @teagsy_ wrote: “Not every day you go for a wee nap and get woken up by 2 fighter jets flying overhead. Why are USAF [US Air Force] jets flying over Scotland?”
Conor Mockler added: “Two US F15 fighter jets just flew over the central belt of Scotland - Actually thought the world was ending and life flashed before my eyes.”
User @alternateadman wrote: “Nice of the @RoyalAirForce or @10DowningStreet or @scotgov to advance warn folk there’d be American F-15 fighter jets low flying over towns and cities in Central Scotland at near supersonic speed.
“Lots of brown trousers in Lanarkshire.”
“So everyone in central Scotland collectively shit their pants at they fighter jets then according to twitter. Glad I wasn’t the only one,” Kevin Ryan added.
An MoD spokesperson told The National it was their understanding that the fighter jets were American, but they were “not sure” what they had been doing.
They added that it was “probably just a training mission”, but told us to contact the US Air Force for confirmation.
Public Affairs Officer for the US Air Force, Captain Marie Ortiz offered an apology on Friday morning as well as an explanation for the "routine training".
She said: “We can confirm that jets from the 48th Fighter Wing took off at 4.40pm yesterday from RAF Lakenheath headed for LFA16 airspace in Scotland to conduct night terrain following radar operations.
"This routine training, which is required for combat proficiency, entails aircrew flying at an altitude of 500-1000 feet. Routine trainings like this are a demonstration of our commitment to collective defence and cooperative security alongside the UK, and our other allies and partners in the region.
“While we take maximum care to avoid overpopulated areas especially during night operations to mitigate noise impacts, we apologise that last night’s operations caused a disturbance.”
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