One of the handful of F-16 fighters that NATO donated to Ukraine has already been lost, multiple US outlets reported on Thursday, citing Ukrainian officials.
Several European NATO members had pledged to supply Kiev with US-made jets, the first of which were spotted over Odessa earlier this month.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that one of the F-16s was “destroyed in a crash on Monday.” Citing a US official, the outlet said the plane was not shot down, but likely crashed as “a result of pilot error.”
The Ukrainian military does not believe pilot error was behind the crash, CNN claimed, citing a source in Kiev. The incident is under investigation and “international experts” will be invited to participate, the source said.
CNN also reported that the pilot, identified as Aleksey “Moonfish” Mes, one of just a handful of Ukrainian officers trained to fly F-16s, was killed in the crash.
Reports of the loss of both the plane and the pilot came just two days after Vladimir Zelensky claimed the F-16s had been successfully deployed to destroy an unspecified number of missiles and drones launched by Russia on Monday. He made no mention of losing a plane at the time.
The reported crash happened during the largest Russian missile attack since the start of hostilities. Another barrage the following day targeted “critical airfield infrastructure facilities in Ukraine,” using “long-range air-launched precision weapons, including Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles, and attack UAVs,” according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.
Russian media have reported that one of these strikes targeted the Starokonstantinov airfield in Khmelnitsky Region, where F-16s were spotted in promotional materials filmed by the Kiev government. According to these outlets, Mes was actually killed by an Iskander strike on the airbase that also wrecked his plane.
The pilot’s death was first reported by a city councilman in Lutsk, the city in northwestern Ukraine that Mes was from.
CNN previously interviewed Mes and one of his squadron mates, Andrey “Juice” Pilshchikov, both of whom spoke English and were made the “faces” of Ukraine’s campaign to get F-16s from the West. Pilshchikov was killed in action last August.
A Russian company has offered a reward of 15 million rubles ($170,000) to whoever shoots down the first F-16 in combat. No one has stepped forward to claim it so far. The Kremlin has said that the American-made jets won’t make a difference on the battlefield and will be destroyed just like the other Western hardware provided to Ukraine since the start of the conflict.