Russia Ukraine war top Ukrainian pilot MoonFish killed in F-16 crash amid Russian Air Assault first F-16 downed in Ukraine but confusion over how it happened the first Western supplied F-16 spider jet crashed and killed his pilot Alexi MoonFish M on August 26th but there is confusion over how it happened keev denied that it was brought down by Russian air defenses the fighter was initially reported to have crashed according to Ukraine's defense Ministry a Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet was destroyed in a plane crash on Monday a Us official said just weeks after the first USM aircraft arrived in Ukraine The Wall Street Journal reported however Ukrainian lawmaker Mariana bazou claimed that the jet had been brought down by Friendly Fire Ukraine's air defenses had mistakenly fired a NATO Supply Miss plane yeah preliminary reports said the plane was not shot down but f-16s were used to shoot down inbound missiles during the massive barrage on August 26th Ukrainian president badim zalinski said this week when over 200 missiles and drones targeted 15 regions the largest attack since the start of the war over two years ago M destroyed three cruise missiles and one drone in Russia's largest aerial attack to date before crashing Alexi saved ukrainians from deadly Russian missiles the Ukrainian Air Force wrote in a statement on social media unfortunately at the cost of his own life the US officials speculated that the crash mostly likely occurred as a result of pilot error Ukrainian aviators have been rushed through their training to fly the advanced f-16s a process that usually takes years however there are conflicting reports as to the cause of the Downing of the jet bazula criticized Ukraine's Air Force for falsely describing the incident as a crash claiming it had shot the plane down by mistake during the frenzied operations against Russia's massive missile barrage on August 26th [Music] according to my information the F-16 of the Ukrainian pilot alexe MoonFish M was shot down by the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system due to a lack of coordination between the military units Baza wrote on telegram as cited by Taps she claimed the jet was downed by a Ukrainian Patriot air defense system in a friendly fire incident