The incident with the drone happened on August 26, Air Defense Commander Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili said in a TV interview aired on Saturday night, just as the country marked the force's anniversary. The U2 incident happened on March 21, with the pilot turning the plane around after a warning from the Iranians, he said.
"The aircraft's pilot... had to respond because the missile defense systems of the Air Defense Base and Air Force fighters as well as IRGC's drones were ready to confront it," Esmaili said.
Highlighting Tehran's progress in developing domestic air defense technology, Esmaili said the Bavar-373, Iran's counterpart and supplement to the Russian S-300 system, will be ready to enter service by the end of the current Iranian year, or by March 2018 under the Gregorian calendar. The first battery of the domestically-produced SAM missiles will be deployed from the Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base, he said.
Esmaili also announced that Iranian military engineers have manufactured highly-sensitive over-the-horizon radar with a range of 3,000km.
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