A 24-year-old man took off from a small airfield in southern Hungary on Saturday in a stolen aircraft, entering restricted airspace above the nation’s only nuclear plant. The man, who has never flown a plane before, forced a fighter jet response before bringing the aircraft down himself.
Radar picked up the Cessna 172 the moment it left the ground at Kalocsa airfield, and controllers sent a pair of Saab Gripen fighters up from Kecskemét air base. It headed toward the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, which supplies roughly half of Hungary’s electricity and sits inside a no-fly zone extending three kilometers and up to 6,000 meters in altitude.
According to local Hungarian media, the pilot circled the restricted zone directly above the facility before coming down just minutes later in a field outside Gerjen. The Gripens reached the crash site after the plane had already gone down, staying overhead until a rescue helicopter and ground crews arrived. The plane’s landing gear broke on impact, leaving it tilted on one wing. The man was unharmed.
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Hungarian officials have not described the incident as a hijacking. Defense Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi wrote on Facebook that the man grabbed an aircraft sitting at the Kalocsa airfield, calling it an impromptu test flight, and “didn’t hesitate for long” before turning toward Paks. Local reports describe him as disoriented or in an unstable state, and some outlets have reported he was intoxicated, though officials haven’t confirmed that detail.
Ruszin-Szendi said the scramble was out of the ordinary, calling it proof his forces could react on short notice. No one was injured, the plant wasn’t damaged, and authorities say there’s currently no indication the flight was a deliberate attack. The investigation into the man’s motives and how he accessed the aircraft is ongoing.
