Four fighter jets were scrambled at the same time to intercept the target, which had traveled up to 14 km inland in the southeastern county of Constanța, the defense ministry said. The pilots did not see the drone.

At the same time, inhabitants of several localities of Constanța county on the Black Sea coast and the Romanian border with Bulgaria received an emergency SMS alert that warned them of objects falling from the sky, according to the Digi24 Romanian news broadcaster.

The warning urged people to “keep calm” but also told them to move to cellars or in municipal shelters. People who had no access to these locations were told to stay indoors and to keep away from windows and exterior walls.

"The radar signal indicated Romania’s land border was crossed at around 1600 GMT," the Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding the drone was first detected heading for Romania over the Black Sea.

Army personnel will search for a potential crash site on Friday morning, the ministry said.

In early September, Romania and Latvia both had their airspace breached by Russian drones, prompting worries of escalation and defense ministers from NATO's eastern flank collectively called for a robust coordinated response from the alliance to drone airspace breaches.

A Russian drone breached Romania's airspace again in late September.