Iranian pilot killed in F-5 fighter jet crash

US-made training aircraft crashes during attempted landing in Dezful, near Iraqi border; co-pilot survives

TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian F-5 fighter jet crashed in southern Iran on Sunday, killing its pilot, state media reported.

The jet, a training aircraft, crashed as it attempted to land in Dezful in the southwestern Khuzestan province near the border with Iraq, the official IRNA news agency said.

Its pilot was killed but his co-pilot survived and was hospitalized.

The cause of the accident was unknown.

Iran bought its F-5 fighters from the United States before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and still has 48 in service, according to the latest estimates by Jane’s IHS Markit.

Last week, Tehran unveiled its first domestically built fighter jet, which is closely modeled on the F-5.

Iran unveiled the fighter jet at a defense show in Tehran on Tuesday, calling the Kowsar a “fourth-generation” fighter, with “advanced avionics” and multi-purpose radar, the Iranian news agency Tasnim said, adding that it was “100-percent indigenously made.”

But analysts quickly noted similarities between the plane and the F-5 fighter jet, made by Northrop-Grumman in the 1950s.

“The Iranian regime unveils the Kowsar plane and claims that it is ‘the first 100% locally-manufactured Iranian fighter jet,’” Ofir Gendelman, Netanyahu’s Arabic language spokesman, wrote on Twitter. “It boasts about its offensive capabilities. But I immediately noticed that this is a very old American war plane (it was manufactured in the ‘50s). It is from the F-5 class of jets which has not been in use for decades.”

النظام الإيراني يكشف النقاب عن طائرة #كوثر ويدعي أنها "أول مقاتلة إيرانية محلية الصنع %100" ويتفاخر بقدراتها الهجومية النوعية ولكنني رأيت على الفور أن هذه هي طائرة حربية أمريكية قديمة جدا (صنعت في أواخر الخمسينات) من طراز F-5 خرجت منذ عقود من الخدمة… الكذب حبله قصير… pic.twitter.com/Mb8plEjlxr

— Ofir Gendelman (@ofirgendelman) August 21, 2018

The F-5 was sold to Iran in the 1960s and first entered operation in the Iranian Imperial Air Force in 1965. In the West the F-5 line of jets is largely used for training purposes.

Iran has already used the F-5 platform — and, some observers suggest, actual parts from its aging fleet of non-flying F-5s — to develop its newer jets.

The Saeqeh, first flown in 2004, was one such plane.