The skies of Tehran reportedly witnessed an Israeli Air Force F-35I fighter jet shooting down an Iranian jet on Wednesday, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said. It was a Russian-made Yak-130 jet that the Islamic Republic lost in the aerial combat, Israeli media reports said. THE WEEK, however, could not independently verify this claim.
The incident is the first instance of a manned aircraft being downed by an F-35, which entered service in 2015. If true, it is also the first air-to-air combat manned aircraft kill for the Israeli Air Force in about four decades, the report added. According to the Times of Israel, the last time IAF jets shot down a manned enemy aircraft was on 24 November 1985 over Lebanon, when its F-15s managed to take out two Syrian MiG-23 fighters.
The Yakovlev Yak-130 is a subsonic two-seat advanced jet trainer and light combat aircraft that is being marketed as a potential light attack aircraft.
