A Saudi Arabian F-15SA fighter jet has crashed throughout a coaching mission close to the nation’s King Khalid Air Base, killing its two-man crew.
The crash occurred on Wednesday afternoon in Khamis Mushait, within the southwest of the desert kingdom, Saudi Protection Ministry spokesman Brigadier Basic Turki Al-Maliki stated in a press release carried by the state-run Saudi Press Company. The reason for the incident is below investigation.
The air base is positioned about 815 kilometers (506 miles) from Riyadh. It’s about equidistant from the Pink Coastline and the Yemeni border, that are each lower than 150 kilometers away. The US-built SA variant of the F-15 fighter jet can fly at speeds as much as Mach 2.5, or over 3,000 kilometers per hour.
Washington signed off on Saudi Arabia’s buy of 84 F-15SA fighters in 2011, a $29.4 billion deal that marked one of many largest US arms gross sales to a overseas purchaser on report. The final of these Boeing-produced jets was delivered to the Royal Saudi Air Pressure in 2020.
The US-made jets have been instrumental in a Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes on Yemen, beginning in 2015. The Royal Saudi Air Pressure additionally deployed F-15SA fighters to shoot down Houthi drones that have been attacking Saudi oil installations in March 2021. One of many jets went down within the Gulf of Aden in 2015, although its two crewmen have been in a position to eject and survived.
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