An American fighter F-16 Fighting Falcon crashed on Wednesday off the western coast of South Korea after suffering a “in-flight emergency”according to the US military, which added that the pilot was rescued after ejecting safely from the aircraft.
The pilot “is conscious and was taken to a medical center for evaluation”Col. Matthew Gaetke, commander of the 8th Fighter Wing, said in the statement.
The incident is being investigated, he said, and expressed gratitude to South Korean rescue forces and American personnel for the pilot’s quick recovery. “We will now focus on the search and recovery of the aircraft,” he added.
Its about second incident in six weeks for the US military in South Korea, after a US F-16 aircraft crashed on a training mission in waters off the country’s coast in mid-December.
The cause of that incident was also an “in-flight emergency,” as reported then in a statement by the US 8th Fighter Wing.
He Lockheed Martin Corp. F-16 It has been in service since the late 1970s and the United States had an inventory of more than a thousand aircraft as of September 2021, according to the US Air Force on its Fighting Falcon website.
South Korea accuses North Korea of launching cruise missiles for the third time this month
This Tuesday, the South Korean armed forces detected launching multiple missiles cruising North Koreans towards the waters of its western coast, which represents the third round of tests of this type of weapons so far this month.
The launches occur in the midst of great tensions in the region, where the frequency of North Korean war demonstrations and the joint military maneuvers of the United States with its allies South Korea and Japan have become a give and take.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South Korean and U.S. militaries were analyzing the launches. Specific flight details, such as the number of missiles that were launched and the distance they traveled, were not immediately released.
With information from AP.
