Drone crashes in Romania without being detected

Written by journalist Danylo Aleksandrov

On Friday a drone crashed into Romanian territory. While it did not cause damage or casualties, what is alarming is that it managed to fly into the country’s territory undetected.

Romanian Ministry of Defense reported that it and received an emergency hotline call. The institution was informed of a drone crashing near the village of Luncavița in the East of the country, around 5 kilometers from the border with Ukraine. Reportedly it crashed in a wooded area. Ministry of Defense said that the drone was not detected by surveillance systems as it was flying at a very low altitude.

This happens when in the same day another incident involving a drone was recorded in Latvia, where a Eurofighter jet belonging to Italy shot down a drone that was violating the country’s airspace. According to NATO Air Command, four aircraft in total participated in the operation, 2 Italian Eurofighters and 2 Turkish F-16s. Latvian authorities said that what likely happened is that a drone was sent to Latvia as a result of Russian electric warfare.

The incident is far from being the first one in Romania. Since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, several incidents involving drones crossing into Romanian airspace happened. One of the most notorious of these happened in May 2026 when a Russian drone crashed into a residential building in Romanian town of Galați.

While after such incidents the leadership of NATO and its member states express their dedication to protecting Alliance’s territory, drones continue to from time to time cross into NATO airspace causing varying degrees of damage to local infrastructure and population.