2024-08-30 14:45:15
Switching from our old planes to the F-16 fighter is like exchanging an old push-button telephone for an iPhone, said Ukrainian pilot Oleksiy Mes. His dream came true and he was among the first airmen who intervened with American fighters in the war against the Russian aggressor. He died this week during his mission in a modern aircraft.
Mes, known in Ukraine by his call sign Moonfish, became the first Ukrainian pilot to die in an F-16 fighter jet. He crashed on Monday during a combat deployment. At the same time, Ukraine lost one of the six American machines it received at the end of July.
The military said the Mes took off on a mission at the time of the Russian airstrike, but was not hit by an enemy missile or drone. There is speculation on Ukrainian social networks that he failed a complex maneuver and crashed to the ground. Another possibility is that it was accidentally shot down by Ukrainian air defenses using the Patriot system. The Ukrainian Air Force Command says it will release detailed information only after the investigation is completed.
Oleksiy Mes was one of the most famous pilots in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the Russian aggression in 2022, he has participated in combat operations, since June of this year as the commander of a squadron of MiG-29 aircraft. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded him a medal for military service to Ukraine.
He gained media “fame” by being in the first group of pilots who began training on the F-16. He has been trained in both the United States and Great Britain and has given several interviews about it. The Ukrainian government sent Mes and another pilot, Andiy Pilshchikov, to Washington last year to negotiate directly with the White House and the Pentagon about the importance of supplying F-16s to the Ukrainian defense.
Both are dead now. Pilshchikov, who used the call sign Dzhus, was killed in action on August 25 last year in the Zhytomyr region west of Kyiv. So Mes aka Moofish died exactly a year and a day after that. On Friday, the command of the Ukrainian Air Force published several images from Mesov’s funeral in the Khmelnytsky region west of Kyiv, with fighter jets flying over the coffin. But the army did not announce where exactly the last farewell took place.
“He was a strong and loyal soldier, a patriot, a first-class pilot, a leader on earth and in the sky, a good friend, a loving son, a father, a husband, a patriot of his country. His fellow pilots, commanders and subordinates, friends and colleagues came to say goodbye to him, ” Ukrainian Air Force Command said on Facebook.
The Ukrainians hope that the delivery of the F-16 will improve the defense of ground targets against Russian bombing, as the Russians have air superiority in the war. This allows them to gradually conquer villages and towns in the Donbass.
In the first hours and days of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Mig-29 pilot, called the Ghost of Kyiv, attracted a lot of media attention. It was supposed to be about a pilot who destroyed several Russian machines in direct aerial combat and then returned safely to his airport.
Later, however, Ukrainian journalists with contacts in the military said that no such pilot exists and that it is a legend whose origin and origins are unclear. It is true that the Ukrainians managed to destroy several Russian planes in the first hours and days of the war, but it was the “work” of several pilots from different bases and airports.