Washington (CNN) At the same time that political tensions between Washington and Moscow were raging this week, the US and Russia calmly handled the emergency landing of a US military aircraft in western Siberia, according to the Pentagon.

The incident occurred Wednesday when the landing gear of a US observation flight malfunctioned and the plane had to make an unplanned landing in a Russian airstrip near the Chinese border.

The OC-135B observation aircraft had taken off from a Russian airfield at Ulan Ude for a scheduled observation flight conducted under the terms of the Open Skies Treaty.

That treaty allows both countries to fly unarmed observation aircraft over each other's territory. The flights are intended to be confidence-building measures and are subject to provisions for openness and transparency on the information being collected via cameras and other sensors.

On this mission, the US aircraft -- with Russian observers on board -- took off to start its designated observation flight plan, but the aircraft landing gear did not retract.

Read More