Iași RO-Alert spreads to six counties, 31 Oct 2026

Romania sent an "extreme alert" RO-Alert to northern Iași County at 17:04 local time on October 31, 2026, Radio Iași and ProTV reported. The defence ministry's radar had detected an aerial target 10 km from the Moldovan border. By 18:44 the warning had reached six Moldavian counties. The defence minister has since said two drones entered national airspace without authorisation. MApN said one had left and lifted the alert for all six counties at about 19:30, 2 hours 26 minutes after the first message. It has not said what became of the second drone.

The first message told northern Iași County to shelter

The Armed Forces General Staff told the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU) about a possible drone entering national airspace, Radio România Actualități reported. IGSU then sent the RO-Alert. ProTV quotes it as opening "Air alarm. Possible drone incursion," then telling people to stay calm and take shelter in cellars or civil protection shelters. Without a shelter, people were told to stay indoors, away from windows and exterior walls.

ProTV notes that the message names no area and no duration. The defence ministry (MApN) said the warning applied to the north of Iași County.

Fighters took off and Iași Airport stopped departures

Two F-16s on air policing duty took off from Air Base 71 at Câmpia Turzii, MApN said, and an IAR-330 SOCAT helicopter was also mobilised, ProTV reported. A later MApN update says two F-16s took off from Air Base 86 at Fetești, with the helicopter, after the second target. Radio Iași later cited the airport director, who said no aircraft would take off from Iași Airport while the military mission lasted. A flight from Eindhoven, due at 18:25, was diverted to Suceava and landed there at 19:10, Suceava's airport director told Radio Iași.

The alert reached six counties in 100 minutes

Radio Iași's live blog and MApN's updates give the sequence, in local time. Neamț was added at about 17:50 and Vaslui at 17:53, Agerpres confirmed. Botoșani followed at 18:10 and Bacău at 18:15, MApN said via Radio România Actualități. Radio Iași's blog posted the Bacău message at 18:22, so the sources differ by seven minutes. Suceava was last, at 18:44.

At 18:35 MApN said a new aerial target had entered national airspace without authorisation from the direction of Moldova, in the message accompanying the Botoșani and Bacău alerts, Radio Iași reported. That is the first official statement of an entry in this series. The earlier alerts spoke only of a possible incursion.

The defence minister says two drones entered, and MApN has accounted for one

Defence Minister Radu Oprea said on Facebook that two drones had entered national airspace without authorisation in the north-east, Agerpres reported. He said air policing forces were activated and monitoring and intervention actions were under way. MApN then said one of the two drones had left national airspace and that the alert had ended for Iași, Neamț, Vaslui, Botoșani, Bacău and Suceava, Agerpres reported. Radio Iași stamps that announcement 19:30 and notes the alert lasted more than two hours. The aviation authority ROMATSA said restricted airspace reopened at 19:33 and the military aircraft had withdrawn. MApN has not said what became of the second drone or what type they were.

Radio Iași listeners said they saw the drone near Breazu and Lețcani, north-west of Iași, the station reported. The authorities had not confirmed those sightings. No impact, damage or recovery had been reported in the sources AirVeto read.

Iași is far from the earlier Romanian drone sites in AirVeto's archive

The nearest earlier incident in AirVeto's archive is Puiești, a drone crash on November 25, 2025, 80.1 km from Iași. The nearest of 2026 is Vișoara, September 1, 89.5 km away. Most recent Romanian cases sit on the Danube and the coast, for example Moșești in Buzău County. AirVeto counts only incidents it has reconstructed, so this measures its own archive, not every alert Romania has issued.

AirVeto will add the wind at the alert hour once its weather feed is available again. A powered drone under guidance does not drift with the wind, so wind matters here only for debris or an object that has lost guidance. The method is on the methodology page.

Last updated October 31, 2026, from sources current to 19:41 local time. AirVeto updates this page if MApN says what became of the second drone.