Russian pilot filming crash of his fighter jet
A video has surfaced on social media showing a Russian pilot and his burning fighter jet. Reports suggest the footage may be from last year. The cause of the crash is unknown.
A cellphone video circulating online appears to show a Russian pilot using an ejector seat to bail out of his fighter jet. According to the U.S. portal The War Zone, the footage was first published on the Telegram channel of Russian war blogger Kiril Fedorov.
The clip, over 40 seconds long and shot entirely from the pilot's perspective, begins above the clouds, showing the burning jet spiraling towards the ground as the pilot descends on a parachute. Around the midpoint of the video, the man removes his oxygen mask, raises his visor, and starts speaking.
"Your plane hit me, I was lucky there was land below. I have to turn on the GPS, no signal here, that sucks.", the pilot says, adding, "We were attacked and didn't have time to do anything." It's unclear whether the fighter jet was shot down by Ukrainian air defense or possibly friendly fire from Russian troops.
Due to the distance from the camera and poor video quality, the exact aircraft model is uncertain. The War Zone speculates it might be a single-seat multirole fighter, possibly a Su-35S, based on its shape. However, since the pilot speaks in the first-person plural, it could also be a Su-34 or Su-30, which have two-man crews.
The location and time of the footage are also unknown. The pilot's calm demeanor and decision to record the crash suggest it might have occurred over Russian territory or a Ukrainian area occupied by Russian forces.
The War Zone also cites a Polish OSINT channel on the X platform, which analyzes photos and videos from the war zone and pinpoints the crash near the town of Chervonyi Yar in southern Ukraine's Kherson region. The channel suggests the incident occurred on December 22, 2023, when Ukraine reported shooting down three Russian Su-34s in the country's south.
The War Zone reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for a statement regarding the incident, but they have yet to respond. The Commission investigating the incident will likely release a report with their findings once all evidence has been analyzed.
