In a recent attempted interception my planes were intercepted by 3 heavy fighters. I lost two Condors and had my Foxtrot retreat. Seconds after successfully exiting combat and getting into the Geoscape view I was forced back in combat with my single (now unarmed) Foxtrot and those same heavy fighters.
It looks like the enemy squadron was simply fast enough that it could just catch me on the Geoscape as soon as I left combat, ultimately I just let them kill the plane because I had repeated the process 3 times.
I assume this is a bug and that they are intended to give you time to actually escape on the Geoscape.
