{"id":34406,"date":"2023-08-27T04:42:37","date_gmt":"2023-08-27T04:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=34406"},"modified":"2023-08-27T04:42:45","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T04:42:45","slug":"ukraine-war-fighter-ace-and-two-other-pilots-killed-in-mid-air-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=34406","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war: Fighter ace and two other pilots killed in mid-air crash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>B<\/strong>BC News:   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>One of Ukraine&#8217;s most celebrated fighter pilots and two other airmen have been killed in a mid-air crash.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Andrii Pilshchykov won fame taking part in dogfights over Kyiv during the early phase of Russia&#8217;s invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Ukrainian military called the airmen&#8217;s deaths &#8220;painful and irreparable&#8221; losses, and paid tribute to Pilshchykov as a pilot with &#8220;mega knowledge and mega talent&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The crash involved two L-39 training planes flying over northern Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An investigation is under way into whether flight preparation rules were not correctly followed, resulting in Friday&#8217;s crash in Zhytomyr Oblast. The region is west of the capital, Kyiv, and hundreds of miles from the frontline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the deaths in his nightly video address, saying that his country would &#8220;never forget anyone who defended the free skies of Ukraine&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last autumn, as Russia launched hundreds of cruise missiles and drones at Ukraine, Pilshchykov &#8211; who flew under the call-sign &#8220;Juice&#8221; &#8211; spoke to the BBC about the pressure he felt as a MiG-29 fighter pilot tasked with trying to intercept the deadly weapons before they struck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Intercepting the cruise missiles, your mission is to save the lives on the ground, to save the city. If you are not able, it&#8217;s a terrible feeling that somebody will die. Somebody will die in minutes and you didn&#8217;t prevent that,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He also spoke of his lifelong &#8220;dream&#8221; to join the Ukrainian air force which he saw as his &#8220;mission&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Melaniya Podolyak, a friend of Pilshchykov, also confirmed his death, posting an image of his air force badge on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BBC News: One of Ukraine&#8217;s most celebrated fighter pilots and two other airmen have been killed in a mid-air crash. Andrii Pilshchykov won fame taking part in dogfights over Kyiv during the early phase of Russia&#8217;s invasion. The Ukrainian military called the airmen&#8217;s deaths &#8220;painful and irreparable&#8221; losses, and paid tribute to Pilshchykov as a pilot with &#8220;mega knowledge and mega talent&#8221;. The crash involved two L-39 training planes flying over northern Ukraine. An investigation is under way into whether flight preparation rules were not correctly followed, resulting in Friday&#8217;s crash in Zhytomyr Oblast. The region is west of the&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34409,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34406\/revisions\/34409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}