30 to 40 minutes they were flying in the vicinity of this mq9 and 7:03 a.m. central european time is when they collided causing it to crash. the u.s. forces had to bring down the aircraft. does that mean united states piloted to the crash site or struck we brought it down. and also is there any u.s. naval assets currently in the black sea? again, i d have to refer you to navier for any details on particular assets in the region. thank you. laura? can you talk a little bit more about the damage to the m
i m bianna golodryga, welcome to cnn newsroom. i m john berman. we begin with breaking news. a russian fighter jet has forced down a u.s. drone over the black sea. the u.s. air force says the jet damaged the propeller of an mq-9 reaper drone. the aircrafts were operating over international waters when one of the jets intentionally flew in front of the drone and began dumping fuel. the white house says president biden has been briefed on the situation. cnn s oren liebermann is at the pentagon. we also have mark kimmitt. what are you learning? this played out early this morning over the black sea according to u.s. air force europe where a surveillance
drone, an mq-9 reaper drone, was operating, again, over international waters when the air force says two russian fighter jets conducted an intercept in an up safe and unprofessional manner. but it goes beyond that. after the interpret, the russian fighter jets flew in front of the u.s. reaper drone, jumped dual in an attempt to disturb or disrupt its flights and got behind the drone and damaged its propeller. that forced the u.s. to bring down the drone in international waters of the black sea. u.s. aircraft europe issuing a harsh statement about this incident. let me read you a part of this statement. it says, several times before the collision, jumped fuel on in a reckless and unsound and unprofessional manner. this incident demonstrates a lock of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional. now, the national security council has said there have been a number of intercepts like
attention to donors there. they re doing that sort of flesh pressing type of campaigning on top of these rallies, knowing that he has to convince them not just of the message this time, right, before he was talking and he was different and people liked the way he spoke, now ron desantis and others have shown that they can do that same thing. so he has to convince them that not just the message is right, but that he is still the messenger moving into these primaries. kimberly atkins store, vaughn hillyard, thank you. i need to move on to breaking news now a russian fighter jet colliding with an unmanned american drone over the black sea, causing that drone to crash courtney kube covers national security for nbc news. i know you re just getting this information in, but what can you tell us? right, so there were two russian fighter jets, they were flying near this mq-9 reaper
this, but not even close to this severe or dangerous where you see an actual collision between a russian aircraft and a u.s. aircraft, even if that u.s. aircraft is in this case unmanned. the u.s. says it will continue to fly mq-9 reapers as we ve seen it do since the beginning of the war. this is not a small, little commercial drone. this is a large platform. 66-foot wingspan, 36 feet long, and when it s fully loaded, it can weigh more than $10,000 pounds in the air. a collision between that and a russian fighter jet, dangerous and very excla la story. how is the white house responding and what are they asking of the russians at this point? the president was briefed by his national security adviser this morning about what transpired over the black sea. white house officials making