Ukraine said that one of its F-16 fighter jets crashed while repelling a Russian air attack, but its pilot survived.
In an announcement on Friday, Ukraine’s air force said that preliminary data showed the pilot destroyed three aerial targets and was targeting a fourth when an issue occurred with the US-made jet.
“An emergency situation occurred on board,” it said, according to a translation by Ukrainian publication Militarnyi.
The air force did not elaborate on what the situation was or whether the Russian targets were drones, missiles, or aircraft.
But it said that the pilot safely ejected after moving away from a populated area, and was quickly found and evacuated by a rescue team.
It described the pilot as safe and stable.
The air force said the incident occurred at around 3:30 a.m. local time on Friday and that a special commission was investigating what happened.
Ukraine has lost at least two F-16s before this incident, including one that crashed last year while battling Russian missiles.
Ukraine’s F-16s, a fighter jet originally produced by General Dynamics and now manufactured by Lockheed Martin, have been used to defend cities and stop Russian attacks.
But while that role has been important, many air warfare experts describe it as one that Ukraine has been pushed toward because it doesn’t have enough of the jets to use in other roles.
AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
Ukraine started requesting F-16s soon after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, but the first ones didn’t arrive until the summer of 2024.
Some allied countries wanted to send them sooner, but required permission to supply the US-made jets, which the US was initially reluctant to give.
The Biden administration was worried their arrival would lead to a Russian escalation and that it would take too long to train Ukrainian pilots to use them and integrate them into its military. However, the US eventually allowed other countries to send the jets.
Ukraine has been pledged around 85 F-16s from the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, and Denmark, though not all of them have arrived.
None of Ukraine’s F-16s have come from the US, although it is sending spare parts.
Air warfare experts said that not enough F-16s were given to Ukraine for it to be able to use them offensively
Vitalii Nosach/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Ukraine’s F-16s are older models that were previously used by other air forces, and are more limited in their abilities.
Despite this, Ukraine is seen to be performing well with the jets.
Ret. Col. John Venable, a 25-year veteran of the US Air Force and a former F-16 pilot, told BI in January that Ukraine’s air force has made huge leaps and its pilots have demonstrated impressive skills.
Troels Lund Poulsen, Denmark’s defense minister, told BI in February that Ukraine has dispelled any doubts that it could not handle the jets.
“The Ukrainian pilots and the Ukrainian armed forces and air force have also shown that they’re able to deal with this new capacity,” he said.
Among other achievements, it’s claimed that a Ukrainian pilot took out six cruise missiles in a single flight, a feat no pilot had achieved before with the jet.
The pilot’s survival from this latest crash is likely good news for Ukraine. Pilots are often seen as just as important, if not more so, than the jets themselves, as they take a long time to train and are hard to replace.
Many air warfare experts say some F-16 losses are to be expected, and that it’s not inherently a bad sign that Ukraine has lost some of the jets.
Michael Bohnert, an air-warfare expert at RAND Corporation, previously told BI that Ukraine needs to be able to take risks with the jets, and that “if any of the F-16s make it to the end of the war, they probably weren’t used hard enough.”
The remaining F-16s pledged by Ukraine’s allies are still due to arrive, and Poulsen, Denmark’s defense minister, told BI he hoped more countries would commit to sending additional jets: “More F-16s are needed in Ukraine.”
