The Malian Army reported on Tuesday that a Sukhoi SU-25 fighter jet belonging to the Malian Armed Forces, FAMA, and with the registration TZ-20C crashed in the Gao airport area in northern Mali.
The jet, a recent addition to the nation’s air force, was coming home on a mission supporting the local civilian population.
The FAMA has not yet disclosed the cause of the crash, which happened on Tuesday at about 9:30am local time, or the number of casualties.
The single crew member did not survive, and the airport is now temporarily closed, according to a number of local reports.
Recall that in September a helicopter crashed on more than a dozen Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) soldiers in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), killing them.
When it crashed and destroyed before takeoff, the Mi-17 helicopter, which is mostly utilised for transportation, medical evacuation, and VIP travel, had just finished delivering a food consignment to the troops participating in Operation Shujaa.
The helicopter’s tail rotor impacted a tree while it was technically in a captain-supervised flight, causing it to spin out of control before landing onto the troops gathering the food.
Three days before the DRC incident, a Mi-24 assault helicopter crashed into the home of an old woman in Fort Portal City’s Kabarole District, raising questions about the safety of a crucial military service.