U.S. F-16 Falcon fighter crashes into Pacific near Kuril Islands

PanARMENIAN.Net - A U.S. F-16 Falcon fighter crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Kuril Islands on Sunday, July 22, a spokesman for the Russian Border Guard Service in the Far East said.

“The Kamchatsky territorial naval rescue center reported at 8:30 p.m. local time [8:30 a.m. GMT] that an aircraft was in distress over the Pacific Ocean near the northern Kurils,” the spokesman said.

It turned out later, he said, that the aircraft was a U.S. Air Force F-16 Falcon fighter. “The pilot ejected before the crash and was later rescued by a Japanese vessel, the Hokko Maru,” he added.

The pilot was later handed over to a United States merchant vessel on Monday and is in a stable condition, the U.S. Navy said on its website.

F-16.net website said that the jet belonged to the 35th Fighter Wing and was en route from Misawa air base in Japan to Alaska, when it crashed some 200 miles North-East of Japan’s Hokkaido, RIA Novosti reported.