When we track Global Hawk missions over the Black Sea, we are used to recording flights lasting 24 hours with missions then lasting a day or even longer.
Usually, Northrop Grumman RQ-4Bs stay in the area of operations for up to 18 hours, even going as far east as the basin.
Today, however, we witnessed an anomalous mission.
An USAF Global Hawk (reg. 11-2046 – callsign FORTE11) took off from NAS Sigonella at 04:34 CEST and by 16:30 had landed back in Sigonella, spending around 6 hours (or even less) in the area of operations.
A mission carried out only over the western part of the Black Sea, which we do not know whether it was planned so short from the outset or whether it was shortened for some specific reason.