Friendly fire from the Patriot was probably not the cause of the downing of the F-16 in Ukraine. American and Ukrainian investigators are looking at various options that could have led to the crash, the NYT writes, citing two senior US military officials.
Among the reasons are, in particular, a technical malfunction of the fighter jet or pilot error.
After shooting down three Russian cruise missiles and one attack drone during the 25 August attack, the pilot was in a hurry to intercept another target when ground control lost contact with his plane, Ukrainian Air Force officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired the head of the Air Force and promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident.
The publication notes that at the time when pilot Oleksiy Mes was chasing Russian missiles, groups equipped with three different air-to-air missile systems, including Patriot, Stinger and British Starstreak, were also operating.
- The loss of the F-16 was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. On the evening of 29 August, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces released information that the F-fighter was involved in repelling a massive Russian attack on 26 August.
- At the same time, it was reported that the pilot of the aircraft was killed. The General Staff added that a special commission of the Ministry of Defence had been appointed to investigate the causes of the crash, and was working in the area where the fighter jet had crashed.
- Later, MP Mariana Bezuhla reported on social media that the crash was allegedly caused by "friendly fire" from Ukrainian air defence. In response, the then commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mykola Oleshchuk, was outraged by her post and said that "the time will come when you will apologise to the entire army for what you have done, hopefully in court."
- Zelenskyy subsequently fired Oleshchuk and appointed the commander of the Operational Command Centre to act as head of the Air Force.