[kidd]

Um... a key piece off information is missing in the article.

Like - where was the plane going to?

[af_vet_rr]

It sounds like it was being handled way up the chain:

Czech air force commander Ladislav Minarik told the paper that the soldiers knew nothing about the reasons as the whole operation was controlled by the NATO regional command seated in Germany.

If it set down in Europe (the urge to say Western Europe is strong, but since Poland and the Czechs, etc. have joined NATO, NATO is a helluva lot bigger than in my day), chances are some NATO folks were waiting and watching and monitoring. NATO has contingency plans for this kind of stuff, and it sounds like they kicked in.