Can an intercepting fighter jet force a small propeller aircraft down without completely destroying it? A rogue aircraft may fly into a no fly zone, and be intercepted by standard military procedure. That involves increasingly intense attempts to establish communication. When all these fail, it may be required to force the aircraft to go down. The naive solution is to just shoot it down, which may be the right thing to do.

I wonder if it is possible for a F-16 fighter to force a small one propeller airplane to do an emergency landing? Either by making it try to get to the nearest airfield, or alternatively making it try to get to the nearest cornfield - or anything somewhat flat.

For example by disabling its propeller. By either breaking the propeller by  shooting at it, or shooting holes into the engine?  

Would that work for a small aircraft?
Would it work more generally, like for commercial airliners?
An interceptor can gain cooperation from an intercepted aircraft by means of a show of force ie forming up on the target’s 6 and 9 o clock position and attempting to contact them on the emergency radio channel.  If the target remains unresponsive or refuses to comply, a fighter will often cut in front of its flight path in afterburner, causing the target aircraft to be rocked and buffeted in the jet wash.  This is usually enough to get a response from the target aircraft and compliance with the lead fighter’s or ATC’s instruction.

Any kind of intentional damage to the intercepted aircraft would not be done unless deadly force were authorized against the target.  In which case full force ie employment of weapons against the target aircraft to shoot it down would be used.

The video below is a good report on interception procedures against a civilian aircraft.  It was a joint exercise between the civil air patrol and an F-16 ANG unit.