{"id":643958,"date":"2026-10-03T21:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T21:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/643958\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T21:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T21:28:08","slug":"two-us-air-force-fighter-jets-land-at-shannon-after-issue-over-the-atlantic-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/643958\/","title":{"rendered":"Two US Air Force fighter jets land at Shannon after issue over the Atlantic \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/united-states\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/united-states\/\">United States<\/a> Air Force fighter jets diverted to Shannon Airport on Saturday after one declared an emergency over the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">One of the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagles experienced a fuel issue and sought to divert to Shannon, requesting priority clearance. A second jet accompanied the aircraft en route to Shannon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Shannon Airport\u2019s Fire and Rescue Service was alerted and crews were mobilised to holding points adjacent to Shannon\u2019s runway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/irish-coast-guard\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/irish-coast-guard\/\">Irish Coast Guard<\/a> was also alerted and the RNLI lifeboats based at Inis M\u00f3r in the Aran Islands and Kilrush, Co Clare, on the Shannon Estuary were also placed on standby.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The first of the two jets landed safely at 4.34pm, followed soon afterwards by the second aircraft. Fire crews remained at their holding points and didn\u2019t follow the jets down the runway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The two aircraft taxied to a remote parking stand at the airport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It is understood that the jets are based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2026\/10\/03\/increasing-number-of-foreign-born-recruits-joining-defence-forces\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Increasing number of foreign-born recruits joining Defence ForcesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It is also believed the jets were travelling as a group that had left a Royal Air Force base in the UK earlier. The jets departed RAF Lakenheath having arrived there from deployment in the Middle East on September 26th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A total of 12 F15s were expected to leave the UK en route to the US on Saturday accompanied by three aerial refuelling aircraft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The use of Shannon Airport by US military flights is controversial, with anti-war campaigners opposed to the practice. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2026\/10\/03\/taoiseach-signals-halt-to-home-heating-oil-carbon-tax-increases-for-lifetime-of-government\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Taoiseach signals halt to home heating oil carbon tax increases for lifetime of GovernmentOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin was asked if people should be concerned about Ireland\u2019s neutrality as a result of the jets landing at Shannon Airport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cNo, our position is very clear. We are militarily neutral. Everybody knows that, acknowledges that. We\u2019re not a member of any alliance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe\u2019re not members of Nato, and we have no plans to join Nato.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He said landings are facilitated for many Governments and \u201call of those are agreed in advance\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI\u2019m not aware of the precise emergency dimension to the issue that you\u2019ve raised there [the landings on Saturday],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cBut we have clear protocols laid out in respect of that, and that continues to be our position.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two United States Air Force fighter jets diverted to Shannon Airport on Saturday after one declared an emergency&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15469,61,60,5006,1843,43,3026,12465,1577,115],"class_list":["post-643958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-clare","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-coast-guard","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organisation-nato","tag-shannon","tag-uk","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}