The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has confirmed that an F-16 fighter jet crashed while repelling a Russian missile attack on Ukrainian territory. Its pilot, Oleksiy Mes, call sign “Moonfish,” was killed, Radiosvoboda reports.
During the approach to the next target, one of the aircraft lost contact with one of the planes. As it turned out later, the plane crashed, and the pilot was killed, – the post says.
It happened on August 26, while repelling a massive Russian attack. Pilot Oleksiy Mes destroyed three cruise missiles and one attack UAV in an air battle, the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on Thursday. The pilot “saved Ukrainians from deadly Russian missiles… at the cost of his own life”, the Ukrainian Air Force Command said.
On August 29, his fellow pilots, commanders and subordinates, friends and colleagues, hundreds of ordinary Ukrainians came to say goodbye to the pilot. A pair of MiG-29 fighters paid tribute to the fallen pilot from the sky. Oleksiy’s combat friends flew over the procession. By the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant Colonel Oleksiy Mes was posthumously promoted to the rank of colonel, – the post reads.
Oleksiy Mes was one of the first Ukrainian pilots to be trained on Western F-16 fighters in Denmark. His comrades-in-arms recall that he was a skilled pilot and performed well on his first F-16 missions as soon as they arrived in Ukraine in late July.
