South Korea, March 02: Three South Korean pilots died after their fighter jets crashed into a mountain during a routine training flight.
The two F-5 jets went missing five minutes after leaving base at Gangneung 160km east of Seoul today, the defence ministry said.
“Our rescue team has discovered remains of the pilots and the wreckage scattered along the ridge of a mountain west of the base,” an air force spokesman said.
“We have concluded that all the pilots were killed in the crash.”
The accident was the second such case in less than two years after two F-5Es crashed northeast of Seoul in November 2008.
The age of the South Korean jets in today’s crash was not known.
The F-5 first went into service in the United States in the 1960s.
—Agencies