Ukraine Military Confirms Loss of First F-16, Pilot Killed

Ukrainian servicemen carry flags after a ceremony held to mark Ukrainian Air Forces Day at an undisclosed area on Aug. 4, 2024. Sergei Supinsky/AFP

The Ukrainian military has confirmed that one of the F-16 fighter jets it recently received from its Western allies had been lost amid a Russian missile strike.

The confirmation was made after reports that the aircraft likely crashed on Aug. 26, when Russia launched more than 200 missiles and drones into Ukraine in an attack that lasted more than eight hours, hitting civilian homes as well as key energy and fuel facilities.

The F-16s were deployed that morning to help intercept the aerial barrage, Ukraine’s Armed Forces General Staff said on Aug. 29 on Facebook.

“During the air combat, the F-16 aircraft demonstrated their high efficiency, shooting down four enemy cruise missiles with airborne weapons,” the post read, according to an English translation.

“During the approach to the next target, communication with one of the jets was lost. As it turned out later, the plane crashed, the pilot was killed.”

The General Staff said it has formed a special commission to investigate the causes of the crash, which it described as an accident. The location of the crash was not disclosed.

Pilot’s Death

Earlier the same day, Ukraine’s Air Force announced that pilot Oleksiy Mes had been killed on Aug. 26.

Mes, known for his call-sign “Moonfish,” was one of the first Ukrainian pilots to have completed F-16 training in Denmark. He was featured in Ukrainian government materials calling for better jets to protect the country from Russian attacks.

“Oleksiy destroyed three cruise missiles and one attack drone while repelling a massive Russian combined air and missile attack,” the air command said in a Facebook post announcing the pilot’s memorial service.

Ukraine received its first batch of F-16s earlier in August. NATO allies such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium have pledged to donate about 80 of them to Kyiv, and 10 have been delivered so far.

The F-16s, known for their versatility and combat prowess, are a significant improvement from the Soviet-era MiGs that Ukraine has relied on to defend itself since 2022, when its decade-long conflict with Russia escalated into a full-blown war.

The F-16s had been on Ukraine’s wishlist for a long time. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has spent months pleading for those advanced warplanes, saying their addition would help even the odds against the Russian air force in the skies over Ukraine.

Zelensky has said that F-16s gave “a very good result” in fending off the Aug. 26 attack.

“As part of this huge attack, we shot down some missiles and drones with the help of F-16s,” he said at his daily press briefing, the Kyiv Independent reported.

“We thank our partners for providing us with the F-16s. Of course, this is not enough, we don’t have many of them, and we still need to train pilots,” he added.