--- title: "US Pilot ‘Involved’ In Ukraine Fighter Crash, Status Unknown" date: "2018-10-16" modified: "2018-10-16" authors: - name: "Jeff Schogol" job_title: "Senior Pentagon Reporter" link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jeff-schogol.md" url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/ukraine-plane-crash-american/" categories: - "Aircraft" - "Around the World" - "Europe" - "Fighter Aircraft" - "News" - "Tech & Tactics" - "Ukraine" tags: - "European Command" --- # US Pilot ‘Involved’ In Ukraine Fighter Crash, Status Unknown ![]() The status of a U.S. pilot remains unclear after a Ukrainian fighter crashed on Tuesday during joint exercises in western Ukraine. A Ukrainian Sukhoi SU-27B went down in the Khmelnytskyi region, killing both the pilot and co-pilot, the Ukrainian military’s general staff announced on Tuesday. Initially, the general staff announced that an American was one of the two killed, but that information was retracted, according to Meduza, a Russian-speaking media outlet. Defense officials in Europe were unable to tell Task & Purpose on Tuesday whether the American pilot was alive. “At this moment, we can only say that a U.S. service member was involved in the incident, and that it is still under investigation,” Capt. Christopher Bowyer-Meeder, a spokesman for U.S. Air Forces Europe, said in an email. *This post will be updated as we learn more.* ## Author Jeff Schogol is the former senior Pentagon reporter for Task & Purpose. He reported on both the Department of Defense as a whole and individual services, covering a variety of topics that include personnel, policy, military justice, deployments, and technology. ### Author social links [Instagram]() [LinkedIn]() [Twitter]()