DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates (UAE) military plane which crashed in Yemen came down due to a “technical fault,” the Saudi Press Agency SPA reported on Monday.
The agency quoted a statement by the Saudi-led coalition as saying that two Emirati pilots were killed when the Mirage plane crashed. Earlier UAE announced that an Emirati fighter jet taking part in a combat mission against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen has gone missing.
“The Supreme Command of the Armed Forces announced today that a fighter jet taking part in the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia... in Yemen was missing,” said a statement on the official WAM news agency.
It is the first known case of an Emirati jet from the coalition going missing since the Saudi-led campaign began in March last year.
Coalition warplanes turned their crosshairs on Yemen’s second city Aden for the first time last week.
Security officials and witnesses told AFP that a jet had crashed into a nearby mountain on Monday.
Apache helicopters were taking part in the fighting on Monday, security officials said.
In December, a Bahraini F-16 crashed in Saudi Arabia due to a “technical error.”
The pilot was saved and the plane’s wreckage was found. — AFP
