A U.S. Air Force F-16 deployed to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing crashed Friday in Iraq at 12:27 a.m., according to United States Central Command Air Forces.
Ohio Air National Guard officials confirmed that one of its single-seater F-16 fighter jets crashed.
The aircraft was flying on a close air support mission in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, CENTAF said in a Friday news release. The cause of the accident is under investigation.
More than 300 airmen from the 180th Fighter Wing, based out of Toledo, were deployed to Iraq last month. It the first time the unit has deployed there, although pilots have flown support missions inside Iraqi airspace in the past.
Ohio Guard spokesman Mark Wayda said officials in Ohio have not yet received any details about the cause of the crash, only that personnel from the 180th were involved. The unit has been conducting operations in Iraq with members of Oklahoma Air National Guard’s 138th Fighting Wing out of Tulsa.
Oklahoma National Guard Public Affairs Officer Col. Pat Scully says that their unit is operating out of Balad, Iraq, but that the unit’s pilots were in “a transition phase,” and he did not know the pilot’s unit.
