As Marin Mitrica, military pilot since 1991, recounted: „Suddenly, from right, I was hit by a tough object. The collision broke the plastic window covering the cockpit. The splints punched the helmet and wounded my face. In the first moment I bended, as much as I could, over the commands, as the air-stream was powerful and the temperature -30 centigrade [...] I descended and reduced the speed [...] from 850 km/h and from 6500 meters, to avoid hypoxia [...] Fortunately I had the oxygen mask [...] The biggest danger was the hypothermia”.
The fighter landed without problems and was immediately investigated by a military commission. They had no conclusion. Each fighter has a video camera recording the flight, but the speed made the images unclear.
General Ion Avram stated that on the records four triangles, with the size of an A4 sheet, are seen, approaching from the right side. He added that the images were delivered to the „Serviciul Roman de Informatii” (Romanian Intelligence Service) to be analyzed, „as they have performing laboratories and equipment”.
The first hypothesis was that the objects were birds; but everybody agreed that no bird flies at this altitude in this season, because it is too cold. The kinetic energy of a meteorite or space debris would destroy much more of the fighter. But what about very small meteorites? And it was not something dropped from another plane as the last one passed that zone more than one hour before.
A presentation of this case in "Flying Soucer Review" Spring 2008:
