An SAS Boeing 737 had to change its course at the last moment not to collide with a Russian Il-20 close to Malmö, Sweden.

Even if the news was only recently made public, a Boeing 737 with 132 people on board from Copenhagen to Rome had to change course in order to avoid colliding into an unidentified plane, about 50 miles to the southwest of Malmö.

The two planes passed 90 feet apart.

The incident occurred on March 3 in international waters. Even if neither the Boeing 737′s TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) nor the civilian Air Traffic Control saw the aircraft “painted gray with four turboprop engines and a long antenna on the roof,” the Il-20 Coot intelligence gathering aircraft was detected by a Swedish Air Defense radar station while it was heading straight towards the SAS plane.

Luckily, visibility was good and the SAS pilot reacted in time to prevent coming dangerously closer to the Russian Signal Intelligence plane.

Russian Air Force Il-20s regularly fly in the Scandinavian region causing alert scrambles by NATO planes providing Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) for the Baltic Air Policing mission.

H/T to Lars Westholm and Kristian Jönsson for providing details about the incident.