Fighter Jet Crashes in NW Iran, Pilot Missing


TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A fighter jet of the Iranian Air Force crashed in the northwestern province of Ardabil on Wednesday, and the pilot is still unaccounted for.

The MiG-29 fighter aircraft had taken off from an airbase in the city of Tabriz and was patrolling in the airspace of Ardabil Province when it crashed in a mountainous area.

The warplane’s pilot, Colonel Rahmani, has been unaccounted for, but a search operation for him is in progress in the region.

In May 2016, a MiG-29 fighter aircraft of Iran’s Air Force had to make an emergency landing at a military airport in the western city of Hamedan, during which one of the pilots was killed and the other suffered vertebral injury.

In July that year, a Sukhoi Su-24 warplane of the Air Force crashed near Lake Bakhtegan in the southern province of Fars, but the two pilots on board survived.