Ukraine plane crashes

KIEV: Ukraine’s military and the US Air Force said yesterday that a US serviceman was one of the two pilots killed in a fighter jet crash during military exercises. The two pilots were aboard a Ukrainian Sukhoi-27 plane when it came down on Tuesday afternoon in the south-west of Ukraine during exercises dubbed Clear Sky 2018. “The bodies of the pilots have been found, the crew commander was Colonel Ivan Petrenko,” the Air Force command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on its Facebook account. “The second crew member was a member of the United States National Guard Air Force,” it added in an updated report yesterday. US Air Forces in Europe and Africa said on its website that the unnamed American was a member of the 144th Fighter Wing of the California Air National Guard. He was taking part in a “single-aircraft familiarization flight with a Ukrainian counterpart”. —AFP