All was calm above the clouds in the Arabian Sea, and Sam Rutherford’s small propeller plane was cruising at about 190 miles per hour. One Direction was playing from the cockpit speakers.
Until I heard an American voice on the radio.
“You are approaching an Allied warship on the high seas. Establish communications and identify yourself.”
Rutherford and co-pilot Shannon Wong were flying south of Iran, attracting the attention of the U.S. military, which had started a new war in the Middle East.
“I mean, we were excited about the F-16,” Rutherford said, surprisingly calmly, in a video of the moment posted on Instagram. (As he later revealed in a post, it was actually an F/A-18 Hornet.)
Rutherford, a former British military helicopter pilot, was in a similar position, flying over the United Arab Emirates the day before the United States and Israel began a war with Iran.
At the time, the Persian Gulf had become an active war zone, and the Piper PA-28’s radio called for a nearby airliner looking for a quick place to land.
Many people headed to Oman’s capital Muscat, a normally quiet airport, he told CNN.
After landing, he realized he had to make a decision. We will wait in Muscat to see how the new war will unfold. Or he could take the tiny plane he picked up at a factory in Vero Beach, Fla., and deliver it to its buyer, a flight school in India, and keep his paid job.
Early the next morning, Oman’s airspace was cleared and the route across the Indian Ocean to its destination in Ahmedabad was still viable, he said.
Reading the winds of war, he decided to “get the hell out of Dodge” and begin the 900-mile (1,450 km) journey to India.
About three hours after their departure, Iran would attack Oman and close its airspace. However, Rutherford’s decision to withdraw led to an encounter with a US fighter, whose pilot was still waiting for his response.
Now he was worried about the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln. It has a crew of 5,000 and can carry 75 aircraft, including F/A-18s flying nearby.
And then there was a little problem.
“They couldn’t hear us,” Rutherford said. They attempted to establish radio contact with the fighters, but received no response.
It was a tense few minutes. As it turned out, this piper was not one normally seen on this flight route. It was flying low, at an altitude of 10,000 feet, while airliners on the route were well above 30,000 feet.
But Rutherford said the situation calmed down briefly as soon as communications were established.
That’s because American aviators then made another request. Change course 15 degrees to either north or south.
“It was blindingly obvious that we were flying straight toward the carrier,” Rutherford said. “He had no preference between right and left, but please choose one.”
Neither choice was ideal. To the south was the open Indian Ocean. To the north was either Iran or Pakistan, and he had no entry permit from either country.
What followed was like “haggling over a carpet in Marrakesh,” he recalls. Navy jet pilots donated a little. Rutherford calmly explained his limitations.
If he complied with the jet pilot’s request and headed south, “my little single-engine plane would run out of fuel somewhere in the Indian Ocean,” he said.
“So we had to find a position or profile that would allow everyone to be in their comfort zone.”
Meanwhile, Rutherford said two F/A-18s were currently flying in a circle around the small plane. If a high performance jet like this tried to fly as slowly as Piper at 160 miles per hour, it would fall out of the sky.
Rutherford believed he had several hours of fuel and was able to make the requested deviation, but told CNN that pilots don’t like to take risks, especially on water.
“Someone once told me…the only time a plane has too much fuel is when it’s on fire,” he said.
He said they were ultimately able to reach a compromise with the U.S. Navy.
“We were far enough away from the carrier that they didn’t feel the need to shoot us down, and we were close enough to the wake that they felt we could arrive safely,” Rutherford said.
The American fighters continued to maintain their circular pattern around Piper for 30 minutes, leaving nothing to chance.
“They just wanted to make sure we didn’t suddenly come down and start aiming more aggressively toward any of their assets,” Rutherford said.
Once it was far enough east of the Lincoln, the jet said “thank you” and departed, he added.
The adventure is over. At least until this weekend, he was planning the exact same flight again.
“At least there will be a ceasefire,” he told CNN before the visit. “So-so.”
Asked for comment about Rutherford’s interactions with military aircraft, U.S. Central Command said it had no information to provide at this time.
