Yet another article from Hungarian News....
www.politics.hu...
March 18, 2010, 16:27 CET
news
Mystery over Israeli aircraft causes political squall in Hungary
By MTI
Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai has asked ministers to provide immediate information concerning a press report about a recent flight by Israeli
aircraft to Hungary, government spokesman Domokos Szollar told MTI on Thursday.
The government spokesman said Bajnai expects immediate information from the ministers of foreign affairs, defence and transport.
Magyar Nemzet daily, quoting a source without naming it, carried a report with accompanying photographs that two Israeli reconnaissance planes with
the appearance of civilian craft had crossed Hungary's airspace on Wednesday.
The paper said that two planes of the Israel Air and Space Force (IASF) approached the runway of Budapest's international Ferihegy Airport twice but
continued their flight without landing.
Israeli Ambassador Aliza Bin-Noun told MTI that the aircraft were not spy planes but performing routine tasks the kind of which had taken place on
previous occasions, too.
The planes had received permission from the National Transport Authority (NKH) to perform their usual routine tasks. As usual, Hungary's Foreign
Ministry was also involved in the official procedure, she said.
The ambassador said she had not been informed about the details of the mission, including its nature, purpose and exact date. In such cases, she said,
the embassy's task is limited to asking permissions from the authorities.
In addition to Budapest, the routine mission also covered Varna in Bulgaria, Bin-Noun said.
The ambassador said that it was no accident that the news had appeared in [right-leaning] Magyar Nemzet, and that enemies of Israel could be behind
the story.
NKH communication official Aliz Szabo told MTI that the authority issued the transit licence for the Israeli planes under preliminary consultation
with the Foreign Ministry, "in line with the law on air traffic," Szabo told MTI.
The authority, however, declined to answer questions pertaining to the exact purpose of the mission, the type of aircraft, the departure and the
destination of the flights, and whether they had landed in Hungary or carried passengers.