Two years ago I was on board Theresa May's RAF Voyager flying back from Cyprus when Typhoon fighter jets intercepted the flight.
The then Prime Minister, to the delight of Top Gun-loving aides and the press pack travelling with her, had given permission for her plane to be used as the dummy for a vital training mission.
Like the £100million Typhoons involved in , fighter warplanes took off from RAF Coningsby, Lincs, and thundered towards their “target”.
At 17,000ft above the North Sea off the Norfolk coast in airspace called “Area 8”, we watched the fearsome show of force as the UK's Quick Reaction Alert jets flashed their awesome firepower in a “warning” to our “enemy” plane.
The Typhoons drew alongside the Airbus A330 Voyager and tipped their wings to reveal their aircraft's deadly air-to-air weapon systems.
Witnessing the skills of these pilots flying so close to what, in the real world, could have been a threat to the UK was electrifying.
The pilots racing towards yesterday's(SUN) unresponsive aircraft would not have known whether they were about to confront a hijacked plane, a Russian nuclear bomber or, as it turned out, an innocent aircraft which had temporarily lost communications with air traffic control.
The UK's QRA Top Guns keep us safe 24-hours a day, 365 days a year and – despite Sunday's early-morning wake-up call – for that we should be grateful.
