All times in the text are local, i.e. one hour later than in Slovakia.
Key actors — tap for context
Shahed
A designation for several Iranian unmanned aircraft, including one-way attack drones that carry the payload directly in the fuselage. The name comes from the Persian word for witness.
Why here: The Chișinău Ministry of Defence lists this type as a provisional determination; Moldovan police add that the model of the downed machine has yet to be established.
More info →
Transnistria
Territory along the Dniester river which, from Moldova's perspective, is one of its regions, but which is in fact controlled by an unrecognised, Russian-backed state.
Why here: The first leg of the flight passed precisely through it, i.e. through territory the Moldovan government does not control.
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Chișinău
The capital and largest city of Moldova, located roughly in the centre of the country.
Why here: At 16:32 the drone was moving in its direction, then continued westward.
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Ungheni
A town in western Moldova on the bank of the Prut, which forms the border with Romania here, and the administrative centre of the district of the same name.
Why here: Through this district, near the village of Zagarancea, the machine left Moldovan airspace at 16:37.
More info →
Iași
A municipality in northeastern Romania near the border with Moldova, one of the country's largest cities.
Why here: Its airport temporarily suspended flights, and the county received the first of that afternoon's alerts.
More info →
Rîșcani
A district in northern Moldova with its seat in the town of the same name.
Why here: It was here, beyond the village of Mihăilenii Vechi, that the machine eventually crashed into a sunflower field.
More info →
Mihail Kogălniceanu
An airport in southeastern Romania north of Constanța, the main airport of the Northern Dobruja region. It bears the name of Romania's third prime minister and also serves as the 57th Air Base.
Why here: Two Spanish fighter jets sent to monitor the situation took off from here at 16:39.
More info →Ala Diaconu
Spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Moldova.
Why here: She confirmed to TV8 television that the machine that crashed in the Rîșcani district was the same one that had earlier flown over both Moldova and Romania.
Constantin Dolachi-Pelin
Prefect of Romania's Iași county, i.e. the government-appointed representative of the state in the region. Romanian media also refer to him by the diminutive form of his name, Costel.
Why here: He was among the first to publicly state what was happening and identified the flight direction as the south of Iași county and the north of Vaslui county.
Romeo Vatră
Director of Iași International Airport.
Why here: He clarified that flights were not cancelled, but suspended until the situation became clear.
Over Moldova
7 km
Over Romania
82 km
Back over Moldova
The first overflight of Moldova lasted seventeen minutes
The Moldovan Ministry of Defence published a minute-by-minute breakdown. The National Army's airspace monitoring systems detected the machine on Tuesday, September 8, at 16:20. According to preliminary data, it was a Shahed-type aircraft that entered Moldovan airspace from the direction of the Ukrainian village of Slovyanoserbka and moved toward Bender via the country's Transnistrian sector. Ziarul de Gardă ↗At 16:30 the authorities temporarily restricted the use of airspace in the central part of the country. Two minutes later the machine was moving toward Chișinău; at 16:36 it was tracked near the village of Bălănești and continued toward Cetireni in the Ungheni district. At 16:37 it left Moldovan airspace near the village of Zagarancea in the same district and continued toward Golăiești in Romania's Iași county. Ziarul de Gardă ↗
The first leg of the flight passed through the Transnistrian sector, i.e. through the strip of territory along the Dniester that the Moldovan government does not control. Transnistria broke away from Moldova in the early 1990s and is not recognised by any UN member state. Pro TV ↗
Romania scrambled Spanish fighter jets
Romania's Ministry of Defence described its own timeline. Radar detected an airborne target at 16:33 west of Chișinău, moving westward, and at the same moment the first RO-Alert warnings were triggered in Iași county and northern Vaslui county. The target entered Romanian airspace at 16:37 about thirty kilometres southeast of Iași. HotNews ↗Here the two communiqués diverge. Chișinău states that the machine left near Zagarancea heading toward Golăiești, i.e. northeast of Iași, while Bucharest speaks of an entry about thirty kilometres southeast of the city. Neither communiqué explains the discrepancy. Ziarul de Gardă ↗ HotNews ↗
At 16:39 two F-18 aircraft of the Spanish Air and Space Force took off; they serve in the reinforced air policing mission at the 57th Air Base Mihail Kogălniceanu. The alerts then gradually spread to Neamț county at 16:44, to Suceava at 16:53, and to Botoșani at 16:56. At 16:48 the target was reported eighteen kilometres north of the town of Roman. HotNews ↗
The text of the RO-Alert warning read as follows. "There is a possibility of objects falling from airspace. Stay calm! Take shelter in cellars or civil protection shelters. If you have no shelter, stay inside your home, away from windows and outer walls," it said. Digi24 ↗
Iași airport suspended operations. "No flights have been cancelled. For now all flights are suspended until the situation becomes clear," airport director Romeo Vatră told the Agerpres agency. Iași county prefect Constantin Dolachi-Pelin added that, according to his information, it was a drone arriving from Moldova heading toward the south of Iași county and the north of Vaslui county. Digi24 ↗
Three aircraft remained on the ground, one circled over southern Moldova
The official count is seven aircraft — and one landed in Iași. On Tuesday evening the Moldovan Civil Aviation Authority detailed how the closed airspace played out: three civilian aircraft already in the air had to hold, another three remained on the ground at Chișinău's Eugen Doga Airport, and one aircraft landed in Iași, Romania, a decision made by the captain. The three holding aircraft spent about fifteen minutes in Romanian airspace and were then safely guided to land in Chișinău. The authority stressed that the measures were aimed "exclusively at the prudent and coordinated handling of the situation". (Ziarul de Gardă ↗)The closed airspace immediately affected air traffic. According to data from the Flightradar24 platform, a flight from Hurghada to Chișinău had to enter a holding pattern and circle several times over southern Moldova while access to the airport was restricted. Meanwhile, three flights remained on the ground at Chișinău airport — to Istanbul, Tel Aviv, and Tivat. Once the restrictions ended, takeoffs and landings resumed. BANI.md ↗
Romania's air traffic control service ROMATSA reopened the airspace over Iași around half past five, the air raid alert in the counties ended at 17:33, and the airport resumed flights at 17:40. These are three separate steps, not one. Adevărul ↗ HotNews ↗
It turned around and crashed into a sunflower field
At 17:02 Romanian radar lost contact with the target at the border of Iași and Botoșani counties. Six minutes later it was detected again, already in Moldovan airspace. The air raid alert in Romania ended for all the named counties at 17:33. HotNews ↗On the Moldovan side, the machine returned from the direction of Iași, disappeared from radar near the village of Cobani in the Glodeni district, reappeared near the town of Drochia, and was lost at 17:14 near the village of Sturzovca close to Bălți. At 17:39 Moldova reopened the airspace in the central part of the country. Newsmaker ↗
At 17:26 the North dispatch service of the 112 emergency line received a report that a small flying machine resembling a drone had crashed beyond the village of Mihăilenii Vechi in the Rîșcani district. Moldovan Ministry of Defence spokesperson Ala Diaconu told TV8 television that it was the same machine that had earlier flown over both Moldova and Romania. Newsmaker ↗ Digi24 ↗
The General Police Inspectorate confirmed that the machine had come down in a sunflower field and that four fires had broken out. No one was injured. "We ask citizens not to approach the area," police said, adding that the model of the machine had yet to be determined. Ziarul de Gardă ↗
Romanian authorities learned of the crash at 18:30 and specified in their communiqué that the crash site lies about twenty-five kilometres east of the border with Romania, opposite Botoșani county. HotNews ↗
What remains unconfirmed
On the same day, Romanian intelligence reported a foiled Russian sabotage plot, and the Lithuanian press linked a series of fires from Germany to Poland. These are separate cases, not an explanation for this overflight — but they show the context in which authorities on the eastern flank read such events. According to Reuters, the SRI foiled a Russian operation in Romania, and Moscow denies involvement; Lietuvos Rytas writes of a chain of suspicious fires from Germany to Poland and warns of a "new stage of Russian actions". Neither of these cases has been officially linked to the drone over Moldova. (Adevărul ↗, Lietuvos Rytas ↗)Neither of the two ministries named, in their published communiqués, who launched the machine. Chișinău speaks of a provisionally identified Shahed type that came from the direction of Ukraine, and the Romanian outlet HotNews, citing the Chișinău ministry, describes it as a Russian drone. Moldovan police, meanwhile, state that the model of the downed machine has yet to be determined. HotNews ↗ Ziarul de Gardă ↗
Also unanswered is the question of why the machine turned around over Romania. Romania's ministry stated that the F-18 fighter jets took off to monitor the situation, but the published communiqués do not explain the reason for the turn. HotNews ↗
Photo: A Spanish EF-18M Hornet. Romania's Ministry of Defence stated that two Spanish F-18 fighter jets took off on Tuesday. The image is illustrative and does not come from this incident. Author Bernardo Fernandez copado, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. The image has been resized.
