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A Ukrainian F-16 crashed on Monday, killing a top pilot, according to the Ukrainian military.
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The crash occurred during a large-scale Russian attack, against which Ukrainian F-16s were defending themselves.
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It is the first loss of an American aircraft in Kiev, just weeks after arriving in the country.
A Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet crashed Monday, killing a top pilot, in what appears to be Kiev’s first U.S. plane loss.
It remains unclear what caused the crash, which came just weeks after Ukraine received its first shipment of F-16s from NATO.
Ukraine’s air force confirmed Thursday that one of its pilots, Oleksiy Mes, died in combat during a massive Russian strike on Monday. Kiev said he shot down three cruise missiles and an attack drone before he was killed.
“Oleksiy saved Ukrainians from deadly Russian missiles,” the Ukrainian Air Force wrote in a Telegram statement. “Unfortunately, at the cost of his own life.”
The Ukrainian military said it lost communication with an F-16 while fighting Russian threats and later discovered the plane had crashed. It said the cause of the “accident” was being investigated.
Initial reports indicated the plane was not shot down by Russian fire, a U.S. official told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the loss of the plane. A source in the Ukrainian Defense Forces told CNN that they do not believe pilot error caused the crash.
The Pentagon and U.S. European Command referred questions to the Ukrainian military, but the Kiev air force did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s questions.
The fatal incident is said to have taken place during Monday massive Russian missile and drone attackwith Moscow firing a total of 236 rounds of ammunition. Ukraine called this the largest aerial bombardment ever during the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later announced that Kiev used his F-16s for the first time that day in a fight to shoot down several Russian missiles. He said the jets “performed well.”
The F-16 crash and the death of a pilot are a major blow to Ukraine, which has waited years to get the fighter jets. After the US allowed its European allies to transfer the planes to Kiev last year, Western countries began training a limited number of Ukrainian pilots to fly them.
Ukraine revealed early August that the first F-16s had arrived. However, Kiev has only a small number of fighter jets in operation and Zelenskyy has expressed concern that the country will not receive enough to make a difference in the fight.
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