The Ukrainian air force lost one of its ex-Danish Lockheed Martin F-16s on the type’s first action over Ukraine on Monday. Tragically, the pilot—Lt. Col. Oleksii Mes—died.
The single-engine, supersonic F-16 was not shot down, according to the Ukrainian general staff. Instead, it was destroyed in some unspecified accident. “A special commission … has been appointed to determine the causes of the crash,” the general staff announced.
The first handful out of at least 85 surplus F-16s from Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands and Norway had only recently arrived in Ukraine, after more than a year of preparation, when they sortied to help defend Ukrainian cities from the biggest-ever Russian air raid, involving hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
“In the course of air combat, F-16 aircraft demonstrated their high effectiveness, [and] with [their on-board] weapons shot down four enemy cruise missiles,” the general staff stated. Ukraine’s upgraded 1980s-vintage F-16AMs normally fly with two AIM-9L/M infrared-guided dogfighting missiles and two AIM-120B radar-guided air-to-air missiles.
The missiles the F-16s shot down boosted to 201 the number of Russian drones and missiles Ukrainian forces destroyed on Monday. Scores of Russian munitions got through Ukraine’s defenses, however, killing four people and badly damaging the country’s electrical grid.
Mes was apparently maneuvering his F-16 for an attack on incoming Russian missiles when radar operators on the ground lost contact with the plane. Rescuers apparently found the crash site and confirmed Mes was dead. “He saved countless Ukrainians from deadly Russian missiles, tragically at the cost of his own life,” the Ukrainian air force stated.
The loss of a pilot might sting more than the loss of an airframe. Mes spent months training on the F-16 in Denmark. He was among the first few qualified F-16 pilots to arrive in Ukraine, along with that first batch of jets. Dozens more Ukrainian pilots are training in Arizona and Romania and could return to Ukraine at the same time additional jets also arrive.
It was always inevitable that the Ukrainian air force would lose F-16s. But it’s especially tragic for the battered air arm to lose one of the jets during its first combat sortie.
The loss underscores the sheer intensity of the air war over Ukraine. Mes crashed while engaging low-flying cruise missiles, presumably at night, during the most powerful Russian air raid of the 29-month wider war.
The Ukrainian air force has written off more than 90 aircraft in those 29 months—two-thirds of its pre-war fleet. The service has made good those losses by restoring old airframes and accepting surplus jets, including F-16s, from allies.
There’s no reason to expect the air force won’t continue losing planes at a rate of several per month. As more F-16s arrive and join the fight, it’s unavoidable that more F-16s will crash or get shot down.
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