 The incident took place during one of the harshest standoffs of the Cold War, so it is hardly surprising that each side interpreted it as a serious provocation.The Bulgarian Communist government saw the accident primarily as a political negative in the détente in East/West relations that had been achieved in talks in Geneva earlier the same year, so after the incident both pilots were considered for demotion and threatened with prison terms by the minister of the interior Georgi Tzankov.Prison terms were not imposed, as the pilots were determined to have followed the orders given.