Shillong, August 30: The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has confirmed that an F16 fighter jet crashed and its pilot died while combating Russian airstrikes.
The F16 fighters participating in the combat had destroyed four missiles, and one of the aircraft lost contact while approaching the next target, the General Staff said in a statement on Telegram.
“As it turned out later, the plane crashed, and the pilot died,” the statement said, without specifying the date of the incident.
The special commission of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry is working on the scene to determine the cause of the crash, Xinhua news agency reported.
Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian Air Force said pilot Oleksii Mes was killed on August 26 while repelling a Russian attack on Ukraine.
The Air Force did not specify whether Mes was an F16 pilot.
In early August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the first batch of F16s had arrived in Ukraine. (IANS)