Bulgarian parliamentary committee to hold hearing on F-16 amid allegations of sabotage, attempted espionage
The Bulgarian Parliament’s standing committee on the control of the security services is to hold a hearing on May 8 “in connection with possible unauthorised access by a force hostile to Bulgaria to classified information related to one of the systems of the F-16 Block 70 fighter jet and possible sabotage against the official acceptance of the fighter jet into service by the Bulgarian Air Force”.
This was announced on May 2 by Atanas Atanassov, an MP for the opposition We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria coalition and who holds the rotating chairpersonship of the committee.
Appearing in front of the committee will be Defence Minister Atanas Zapryanov, Military Intelligence chief Brigadier General Venelin Venev and State Agency for National Security head Plamen Tonchev, Atanassov said in a post on Facebook.
This is among recent developments after an announcement by the Defence Ministry about the May 6 Armed Forces Day flypast over Sofia made no reference to Bulgaria’s recently-acquired F-16.
The F-16, the first of several that Bulgaria is acquiring, arrived at Graf Ignatievo air base 10km from Plovdiv on April 2 and was the subject of an official ceremony on April 13.
A political row erupted on April 30 after GERB-UDF leader and former prime minister Boiko Borissov alleged that President Roumen Radev had prompted reporters to ask Zapryanov about the F-16, with Radev – according to Borissov – hinting that the aircraft was out of order and not flying.
Borissov said that if what Radev said was true, the commander of the Air Force should be fired.
“How could anyone agree to buy a broken aircraft for $100 million?” Borissov said.
Air Force commander Major General Nikolai Rusev, appointed to that post earlier this year, is a close ally of Radev, who was Air Force commander before being elected head of state.
Radev responded to Borissov on April 30 by saying that Bulgaria had paid a high price for the F-16s, but that had been Borissov’s choice in 2019 when in office as prime minister.
Radev is known to have preferred Bulgaria to buy SAAB-Gripen fighters instead of the F-16s.
He told reporters that the government should allocate more funding for the F-16s because of their high maintenance costs.
Rusev told reporters on April 30 that a “deviation” in one of the systems of the F-16 had been found after landing, adding that this did not mean that the aircraft was “broken”.
He said that the aircraft was not flying because it was still undergoing the acceptance procedure, which has two components, technical and test flights.
Rusev said that the work was being carried out jointly with a team from manufacturer Lockheed Martin and the US Air Force.
“The aircraft will fly when we are ready to operate it. This takes time,” he said.
In the meantime, the MiG-29s would continue to guard Bulgaria’s skies, Rusev said.
On Facebook, Atlantic Council co-chairperson Ivan Anchev, an expert in international security, counterterrorism and law enforcement, posted that the F-16 incident “smells strongly” of a Russian connection.
Anchev posed several questions, including how it was that the aircraft had flown 9000km and had no problems or “deviations” but when it landed in Bulgaria, the “problems appeared”.
Other questions posed by Anchev included whether Radev and his appointed generals were sabotaging the deployment of the F-16 on combat duty, whether there was a dormant or active cell of Russian intelligence in the Bulgarian Air Force, and whether there had been attempt to manipulate or copy the secret software and radar of the aircraft.
“Is the ‘damage’ NOT essentially the cooperation of the aircraft’s defences, against such a kind of wrongdoing?” Anchev said.
Political scientist Ognyan Minchev posted on Facebook that the “chief pilots rascals were messing around in the F-16”.
“They wanted to copy the software and give it to the [Russians]. The software turned out to be cleverer than our rascals – it deleted itself. Now we have to call someone from Lockheed Martin to reinstall it,” Minchev said.
Radev ally Dimitar Stoyanov, an aviation engineer and former caretaker defence minister, sought in a lengthy post on Facebook to rebut such allegations.
Stoyanov said that as with any complex machine, there were teething problems.
“And to dispel all malicious rumors of sabotage, hatred, whatever not, I would like to share that at our Graf Ignatievo air base there are American engineers and technicians who have confirmed the conclusion of their Bulgarian colleagues – there is a refusal with which the plane cannot fly.”
Stoyanov said that it was not simple to to just replace with a unit from warehouse stocks because the spare parts package in the deal for the first eight F-16s had been “horribly cut” “mainly to get into a politically acceptable price”.
“And now we will get a spare unit this time next year, of course, ironically speaking,” he said.
Stoyanov put the blame for this on Zapryanov, deputy defence minister at the time and now Defence Minister.
“On Monday, the Minister of Defense complacently explains that the second F-16 had already left for Bulgaria and we are waiting for it to land in our country in three days. Just that, nothing has left and nothing will arrive this week,” Stoyanov said.
“Separately, Minister Zapryanov swore repeatedly that the F-16 will fly on the May 6 parade. For obvious reasons, this cannot happen. The ridicule of society is starting. Wow, but this is the result of malicious propaganda… And maybe you just have to think before you speak?” he said.
(Photo: Ministry of Defence)
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