Commander of Ronald Reagan group waters down engagement with Russian bombers

The chief of the U.S. strike group commanding the USS Ronald Reagan supercarrier on Friday toned down the brief aerial engagement the warship had with Russian combat jets earlier this week, saying it was part of "normal operations."

During the U.S. aircraft carrier's joint naval drills with South Korea Tuesday morning, two Russian combat planes flew low near the U.S. vessel in waters off South Korea's east coast.

The action prompted the U.S. aircraft carrier to launch four U.S. fighter jets to intercept and disperse the Russian airplanes.

"As we sail around the ocean, several countries send aircrafts out to overfly our ship, it's very normal tourine operations," Rear Adm. John Alexander, commander of the Carrier Strike Group Five, said during a news conference in Busan where the USS Ronald Reagan is anchored.

Also known as the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group, the Yokosuka, Japan-based navy unit controls the supercarrier as its flagship.

"Basically they just wanted to come and look at it. We were operating in the East Sea and we haven't done that in a while," the commander said.

The supercarrier is "the newest forward-deployed carrier" and the Russian bombers wanted to check it out, he said, adding that "in international waters we intercepted them as we always do." (Yonhap)