Spanish fighter jets and helicopters scrambled from a Romanian air base on Sunday afternoon after military radar tracked two unidentified aerial targets near Snake Island in the Black Sea, Romania's Ministry of National Defence said.

The ministry said its radar surveillance system first detected an aerial target roughly 30 kilometres east of Snake Island, inside Ukrainian airspace. The object later disappeared from radar east of Sulina, a town in the Danube Delta. A second target was then detected about 55 kilometres west of Snake Island, closer to the Romanian shoreline and the mouths of the Danube.

Two Spanish Air Force F-18 Hornet jets, deployed at the 57th Air Base at Mihail Kogalniceanu under NATO's enhanced Air Policing mission, took off to intercept the first target. After the second contact was detected, two Spanish NH90 helicopters lifted off from the same base to cover the new sector and check the low-altitude flight ceiling of the object.

According to the ministry, the crews flew patrol and reconnaissance missions in airspace next to Romania's territorial waters to prevent any breach of national territory. The ministry did not specify what type of objects the targets were, nor where they came from, and said it would return with more information.

The National Military Command Centre notified the emergency services, and a RO-Alert warning was sent to residents in the eastern part of Tulcea county at 2.02pm local time. A second RO-Alert followed for the northern part of the county, warning of a possible drone incursion and telling people to keep calm and shelter in cellars or civil protection shelters, or to stay indoors away from windows and exterior walls if they had no shelter.

The first air alarm in the county ended at 3.26pm local time, according to the ministry. Local emergency services said no calls were received through the 112 emergency line in connection with the warning, and no impact or damage on the ground was reported.

The Spanish aircraft are stationed in Romania as part of NATO's air policing mission on the alliance's Black Sea flank. The Spanish detachment, known as Paznic, has been based at Mihail Kogalniceanu since August 2026 and flies alongside Romanian forces to monitor airspace near the border with Ukraine.

The incident is the latest in a series of alerts in the Tulcea area, where Romanian radar has repeatedly tracked aerial objects near the border during Russia's attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure along the Danube. Romanian officials have stressed in each case whether or not the objects entered Romanian airspace, and on Sunday no breach of national airspace was reported.