Russian Jet Crashes In Libya: Report

A fighter jet allegedly operated by the Russian military crashed near the city of Sirte in Libya after the aircraft reportedly suffered technical malfunction on September 7.

An undated video circulating on social media shows a pilot conversing in Russian, filming a video after his aircraft went down in a rock-strewn desert landscape. The pilot was later retrieved by an Mi-24 Hind gunship.

Defenceturk.net reported that it was the MiG-29 that was shot down. “I survived by ejecting the aircraft at an altitude of about 700m. The warplane was downed 45km away from the airbase,” the report stated, citing the Russian-speaking pilot.

There is no visible wreckage to give any clues as to the type of aircraft the pilot was flying.

“I opened my parachute. No enemy vehicles are visible yet,” the pilot adds.  The face of the pilot, who is seen in a seated position on the ground towards the end of the video, is obscured.

The Hind helicopter that arrives to pick up the pilot does not appear to have any clear markings, but it does have the same camouflage scheme that the Libyan National Army (LNA) operates.

The two-minute video shows a helmet having five visible ports on top, the type commonly used by Russian combat jet pilots.