Despite the loss of the F-16 fighter jet of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU Air Force), which was recently received from its Western allies, Kiev's partners do not plan to change the training program for Ukrainian pilots. This was reported by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) newspaper, citing sources. The circumstances of the crash are still unknown. TASS — about the incident and its possible causes
The AFU Air Force was informed on the evening of August 29 about the loss of the first F-16 fighter jet, recently received from its Western allies. The circumstances of the plane crash are not known for certain. A special commission has been formed in the country to investigate the cause of the incident. The preliminary information on this matter, which turned out to be at the disposal of the Western media, is at odds with the hypotheses of experts.
An unnamed American official told The Wall Street Journal that Kiev had lost the first of its F-16 fighter jets. According to him, the plane was not shot down — the crash occurred due to a pilot's mistake "just weeks after the first American fighters arrived in Ukraine."
Later, the command of the AFU Air Force confirmed the death of the F-16 along with the crew. A message was distributed on the Telegram channel and social networks of the forces that in an air battle on August 26, in the process of repelling a Russian missile strike on that day, "the pilot of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexey Mes, was killed."
As CNN reported, Mes was trained to pilot the F-16. With reference to a source in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they indicated that the serviceman died during the plane crash. At the same time, the CNN interlocutor said that he did not believe that the pilot's mistake was the cause of the F-16 crash.
Experts expressed a similar opinion in the relevant Telegram channels, calling the work of the Ukrainian air defense forces (air defense) or a mid-air collision with a drone as working versions of what happened.
One of these versions was confirmed in her Telegram channel by Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Mariana Bezuglaya. "According to my information, the F-16 of the Ukrainian pilot Alexei Mesya was shot down by the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system due to discoordination between units," she wrote. "The culture of lies in the command of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as in other senior military headquarters, leads to the fact that the military decision management system does not improve on the basis of truthful, consistently collected analytics, but worsens and even collapses, as it happens at Pokrovsky (Krasnoarmeysky — approx. TASS) direction," Bezuglaya added.
The Pentagon, however, could not confirm the version with Patriot, although neither Washington nor Kiev refuted it.
"I don't have enough reliable information," Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary of the US military department, said at a briefing for journalists. — Therefore, it is up to the Ukrainians themselves to talk about whether this pilot was killed and whether he was shot down by friendly fire, which I cannot say. <...> The United States has not been asked to participate in any investigation of this incident."
Singh also refused to say how many American fighters of this model are currently in Ukraine, referring the issue to Kiev. According to unofficial estimates provided by Defense News weekly on August 29, at the time of publication, it was believed that the APU had received six F-16s. The British magazine The Economist reported that Ukraine received ten fighter jets, and by the end of this year their number will increase to 20.
A special commission of the Ministry of Defense was established to clarify the causes of the incident. She works at the crash site of a fighter jet. Nikolai Oleshchuk, who was dismissed from his post as commander of the AFU Air Force on August 30, said in his Telegram channel that day that the United States had already received a preliminary report on the incident and joined the investigation.
Oleshchuk added that in connection with the loss of the aircraft, "no one is hiding anything." "All senior management immediately received reports about the disaster. <...> I assure you that a detailed analysis is being carried out, an investigation is underway," he stressed.
There is only one plane — there are many versions
Meanwhile, the specialized aviation portal Aviacionline stated in its publication that the Russian side had learned the real location of the Ukrainian F-16 base just before the attack. Russian sources told the publication that military intelligence found out this by analyzing one of the videos of the AFU Air Force on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
Earlier, a version was already known that the F-16s transferred to Kiev were stationed at one of the air bases in western Ukraine. After comparing the mentioned video with footage from the farewell ceremony with another Ukrainian pilot, Andrei Pilshchikov, who crashed on an L-39 training aircraft exactly a year ago, it was possible to establish that, "as expected," the sought-after military airfield is Kolomyia in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
As a result, Aviacionline stressed, a few hours after the video was published, this airbase became a target for Russian weapons. The portal also pointed out that the statements of the AFU Air Force about the loss of the F-16 and the death of the pilot Mes were not filed in a single context, although the connection between them is obvious.
The publication cited three possible hypotheses about exactly how the plane was destroyed.
In the first case, according to Aviacionline, the base could have received a warning about a missile attack, as a result of which the command decided to urgently lift all F-16s into the air to avoid their destruction on the ground. However, missiles or drones of the Russian Federation reached the target earlier and hit the said fighter immediately before or during takeoff.
According to the second hypothesis, Mes managed to get the plane into the air in time to repel the attack, shooting down, as claimed by the AFU Air Force, three missiles before radio communication was lost with the aircraft. In this case, according to the portal's experts, the cause of the fall of the F-16 could be a technical malfunction, loss of orientation of the pilot in space or another human factor.
The third hypothesis suggests that the plane was shot down by its own Ukrainian air defense. The publication did not consider the version about the destruction of the fighter by a Russian missile.
Meanwhile, on the evening of August 29, publications appeared on social networks with reference to unnamed sources in Turkey. According to them, "the first Ukrainian F-16AM fighter was shot down from an ambush by a Russian Su-57 at the limit of the range of air—to-air missiles.
Igor Kimakovsky, adviser to the head of the Donetsk People's Republic, called the death of the F-16 in Ukraine an "image blow" to the American military-industrial complex. "They have a "friend-foe" system. Even if this happened, it means that it turns out that it did not work," he said.
In his opinion, this is far from the last lost Ukrainian F-16. "And so it will be, I think, with all those supplied by Western countries," Kimakovsky added.
"They're holding up well"
Meanwhile, the commander of the Dutch Armed Forces, General Onno Eichelsheim, said at a press briefing in Washington that the F-16s that the kingdom handed over to Ukraine are in working condition and "are doing well."
He said that the country will transfer to Kiev a total of 24 aircraft with weapons that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to use as they want, including for strikes against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation, bypassing humanitarian law. "We have no restrictions on this," the Dutch general said.
Nevertheless, the head of the Dutch defense Ministry, Ruben Brekelmans, in an interview with NOS TV channel, denied these statements, saying that Kiev is obliged to comply with the laws of war when using its F-16s against the Russian Federation. This, in particular, stipulates that strikes should not be directed against civilian targets. "Ukraine definitely cannot do this," the minister stressed. — This is the condition that we have set."
Eichelsheim refused to name the exact number of F-16s transferred by Amsterdam to Kiev at the moment, citing the secrecy regime. According to him, another 18 Dutch fighter jets are now based in Romania, where a new training center for training crews of such aircraft has recently been opened. In the future, as the commander of the Dutch Armed Forces said, they can also be given to Ukraine.
According to Eichelsheim, the AFU will receive additional F-16s as the countries that have committed to such supplies switch to more modern F-35s. "[The main] attention should now be paid to the training of pilots and engineering personnel," he said, adding that maintaining a fleet of such fighters in Ukraine would be the biggest difficulty.
"This will be done in Ukraine, and we will provide Ukrainians with funding for these purposes," said the general, whose words were quoted in Defense News. At the same time, according to him, the F-16s themselves and their airfields based in Ukraine will be a primary target for Russia, and they can only be protected with the help of echeloned air defense.
In Washington, Eichelsheim held talks with American military companies on the subject of the Dutch initiative to supply Kiev with additional Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems (SAMs). It was expected that it was with a request to accelerate the supply of air defense systems that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky would speak first after the recent strikes by the Russian Federation.
In particular, the Commander of the Dutch Armed Forces met with representatives of RTX Corporation, engaged in the production of Patriot, discussing cooperation with European companies. In addition to missiles for the Patriot air defense system, the conversation also concerned ammunition for the FIM-92 Stinger man-portable complexes and AIM-120 AMRAAM aircraft missiles, which can be used by some Western air defense systems. It was about how to speed up their production.
According to Eichelsheim, the response he received from American industrialists was "very positive." European countries only need to provide clear information about how many and when they need missiles, as well as what contribution they can make to their production.
On the other hand, as the commander noted, the decision is still up to the American authorities. "Because they also play an important role in this. What we are going to produce and what we intend to share is American technology," he explained.
As for the means of notification, the Dutch general said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine has good missile attack warning systems at their disposal. They allow the crews of aircraft, including F-16s, to respond to such threats in a timely manner.
Study and learn
Commenting on the version about the pilot's mistake that led to the crash of the first Ukrainian F-16, some publications noted that the fault was probably the lack of preparedness of the Ukrainian crews for the use of such fighters. They had to be trained "in an emergency mode" for only a few months, whereas normally the duration of the training course should be about three years.
Meanwhile, the manufacturer of the F-16, the American Lockheed Martin Corporation, announced its readiness to contribute to the training of Air Force crews in the new training center in Romania. "The authorities of Ukraine and the United States are determining the best approach to training Ukrainian pilots. If they consider the training at the Romanian center to be correct, then we will follow their instructions and do it," Frank St. John, managing director of the company, said in an interview with Defense One portal.
According to the portal, the first group of eight Romanian military personnel has already completed a training course at the new base in July. St. John explained that the company could train up to 30-40 pilots there per year.
Also, according to him, Lockheed Martin could be engaged in the maintenance of F-16s arriving in Ukraine, in Poland. "We would like to make this [maintenance center in Poland] regional. And Ukraine is certainly part of this region," he said.
A Lockheed Martin representative explained that the center was built so that fighters based in Europe would not have to be sent to the United States for repairs. According to him, the question of whether F-16s arriving in Ukraine will be serviced in Poland should also be decided by the authorities in Kiev and Washington. St. John noted that active discussions are currently underway on this issue, but "no contracts have been concluded."
Also, Lockheed Martin has no specific plans to create joint ventures in Ukraine, following the example of another American corporation, Northrop Grumman. The latter is preparing to open an ammunition factory there.
Moreover, according to WSJ sources, the administration of US President Joe Biden rejected the military's proposal to send representatives of American defense manufacturers to Ukraine in order to service Western-made equipment there, including the F-16. According to them, the intelligence community called such a step too risky.
Washington hopes that European countries will "take over the bulk" of the responsibility for servicing the F-16. At the same time, the administration did not rule out the possibility of sending American industrialists to Ukraine in the future.
"In the long term, we would like to apply a similar Polish model as we build up our own industrial base in the field of defense of Ukraine and as its needs grow," St. John said. He added that the corporation is now planning to expand its representation in the world and will soon start building maintenance centers in East Asia and Western Europe.
Konstantin Alysh
