F-16 Just Delivered by US Crashes During Russian Attack

An F-16 helping to fight off a Russian missile attack crashed, killing a celebrated Ukrainian pilot, weeks after the US delivered a half-dozen of the fighter jets. Oleksiy Mes was among the first Ukrainian pilots trained to fly an F-16, the Wall Street Journal reports, and had visited the US to lobby lawmakers for the fighter jet deal. The crash happened Monday. The Ukrainian army's general staff said Thursday that several of the F-16s had been fighting the Russian missile attack alongside anti-aircraft missile units, per CNN. "During the approach to the next target, communication with one of the aircraft was lost," the update said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky had said Tuesday that F-16s had been deployed to destroy missiles and drones launched by Russia the day before, which was the first official confirmation that they'd been used in combat. Ukraine's air force said Mes, who was known nationally by the nickname Moonfish, destroyed three cruise missiles and an attack drone Monday before he was killed. The announcement said Mes was posthumously awarded the rank of colonel. He had told CNN that he and other Ukrainian pilots would have to settle for a slimmed-down training on flying the F-16. "We would have had a lot of time to study the jet completely in peacetime, but we do not have the time," he said. A commission was appointed to determine the cause of the crash, per the Washington Post. (More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)