Indonesian Bawean Island Incident (2 F-16B vs 5 F/A-18s)

On 9/4/03 4:24 AM, in article , "Errol Cavit"
wrote:

"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...

SNIP

As I understand it, the US Navy ocasionally transits through Sunda Strait
(Sumatera/Java) and Lambok Strait (Bali/Lombok), claiming they are
'International Straits'. Both transits require going within 12nm of
Indonesian land. I doubt that flying operations stop for the few dozen miles
that they are reasonably close to land.


Three points:
1. It's been so long since I've done a WESTPAC, I don't remember all the
strait transits. The last two passages I remember were Malacha and Hormuz.
I don't remember Sunda or Lambak per se. May be showing my geographic
ignorance here--either that or we didn't go there.

2. Interestingly enough, international law makes an exception for
straights. In other words, if the strait is less than 12 miles wide, it may
still be international waters/airspace. I had never considered this
possibility until some lawyer briefed me up on it. There's a fancy name to
it too. Lawyers (or sea lawyers) feel free to jump in.

3. Flight ops usually do stop if the waters are restrictive depending on
winds and airspace constraints. The CV sprints through the restrictive
waters and flies again when they open up.

In any case, when a carrier does operate near land,

Only when it must.

every attempt is made to respect commercial airways in both laterally and
in
altitude. Otherwise aircraft operate in "due regard..." That is
essentially, "we'll all share the same piece of sky and try to stay out of
each other's way even though there are no formal procedures to keep that
from happening."

These incidents do happen occasionally. They're not a big deal... Unless
the media trump them up as such.

It's a situation with a lot of possibilities for tension.