Three Conflicting Reports on What Caused Ukraine’s First F-16 Loss: Friendly Fire, Russian Strike, or Unexplained Crash

The Ukrainian Air Force was confirmed on August 29 to have lost its first <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/biden-hits-major-missile-upgrade-ukraine-f16" target="_blank">F-16 fourth generation fighter</a>, with the aircraft having been destroyed on August 26 just 25 days after deliveries began. The loss of one of just six F-16s delivered represents a significant blow to Western efforts to re-equip the Eastern European country with NATO’s <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/f16-50-years-underdog-to-powerhouse" target="_blank">most widely used fighter class</a>, and depending on the circumstances of the loss potentially has significant implications for the future of these efforts. Reports have conflicted regarding the circumstances under which the F-16 was lost, with three causes each having widely reported by different sources.The first explanation, reported by Ukrainian and by Western state affiliated sources, is that the fighter crashed. The aircraft was flown by one of Ukraine’s most experienced pilots, Oleksiy Mes, known as “Moonfish,” who reportedly died while attempting to intercept the “biggest ever aerial attack” by Russia against Ukraine. “During the approach to the next target, communication with one of the aircraft was lost. As it turned out later, the plane crashed, the pilot died,” the Ukrainian General Staff reported. Both Russia and Ukraine have made several highly dubious claims during the war, and the fact that a crash would be the explanation least damaging to morale and to the reputation of the F-16 program has led many sources to doubt this explanation. Nevertheless, the speed with which F-16s were supplied, which left relatively little time for training, means this explanation cannot be ruled out.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2024/08/30/article_66d17dc67f9962_92254553.jpeg" title="Damaged Ukrainian MiG-29 Fighters After Russian Strike">A second explanation reported by a number of Ukrainian and Russian sources is that the F-16 was shot down by local air defences in a friendly fire incident. Such shootdowns by both sides have been <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/ukrainian-mig29-friendly-frontlines" target="_blank">reported multiple times</a> in the conflict. With the F-16 lost during a Russian attack, the possibility of such a shootdown by long range radar guided surface missiles would be highly possible.A third explanation for the loss of the fighter is that it was destroyed by a Russian <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russian-iskander-missile-strike-destroys-rare-ukrainian-su-27-fighter-at-mirgorod-airbase" target="_blank" >missile attacks on facilities</a> hosting the aircraft. Russian forces have successfully launched such attacks to destroy fighters on multiple occasions, meaning such a strike would be far from unprecedented. With F-16s being far less well suited than Soviet built fighters such as MiG-29s to operating from austere or makeshift airfields, the aircraft’s ability to be relocated to avoid future strikes remains limited.&nbsp;This leaves F-16s particularly vulnerable to such strikes, with their deployment locations being far easier to predict.<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2024/08/30/article_66d17d7ce9c480_06030343.avif" title="Ukrainian F-16 Pilot Oleksiy Mes – Known as `Moonfish`" >It is likely that the cause of the loss of the F-16 will never be known for certain. Air Forces have a long history of hiding or misattributing their losses to avoid negative publicity from their fighter losses, and as a result the circumstances of the losses of many fighters from decades ago still remain unknown. A notable example involving the F-16 was the Pakistan Air Force’s loss of one such aircraft during a clash with<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/the-war-where-the-mig-23-demonstrated-its-high-potential-legacy-of-the-soviet-swept-wing-fighter" target="_blank"> Soviet MiG-23s </a>in 1987. While the Soviets claimed the third generation MiGs had shot down one of the new fourth generation fighters, the Pakistan Defence Ministry claimed that their F-16 had been lost in a friendly fire incident, which whether true or not, helped prevent damage to the reputation of the new American fighter class.&nbsp;The United States would four years later claim that its first fighter loss of the Gulf War, a U.S. Navy F-18 fourth generation fighter, was shot down by Iraqi air defences, before sources only years later conceded that it had been <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/top-six-air-to-air-engagements-in-the-gulf-war-how-iraq-and-the-u-s-went-head-to-head-with-foxbats-f-15s-and-more" target="_blank">shot down in air to air combat</a> in a one-on-one engagement with a third generation MiG-25. Concealing this had for years allowed American leaders to claim that their fighters suffered no losses whatsoever in air to air combat, and thus assert that their fighters were overwhelmingly superior to Soviet ones. With other examples remaining manifold, there remains a significant possibility that the first loss of a Ukrainian F-16, the deliveries of which have been anticipated for over a year, has seen reports on the surrounding circumstances altered for public relations purposes. Russia has notably similarly been accused of underreporting and misattributing its own fighter losses, particularly when these involve the country’s top air superiority fighter the Su-35.