A Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet was destroyed in a crash on Monday, The Wall Street Journal quoted a US official as saying.
The crash, which resulted in the death of a top Ukrainian pilot, comes weeks after the first of the American-made aircraft arrived in Ukraine.
As per the preliminary report, the jet wasn’t shot down by enemy fire and resulted likely due to an error on the side of the pilot.
However, according to a report in CNN, the Ukraine Defence Forces said that it did not believe that the pilot error was behind the incident.
However, the crash occurred during a massive Russian missile barrage across the country on Monday.
The pilot, Oleksiy Mes, was killed in the crash while “repelling the biggest ever aerial attack” by Russia against Ukraine, the report said quoting a source.
The Ukrainian officials are investigating the crash and international experts will be invited to participate in the probe.
The F-16s recently arrived in Ukraine from the US in a massive boost for the former’s military in its fight against Russia. Mes was one of the few pilots to be trained to fly the advanced fighter jet.
Kyiv had to wait for a long time to get hold of the American F-16 jets and President Volodymyr Zelensky has been requesting the Western allies for the fighter aircraft ever since the Russian started the full-scale invasion in 2021.