A Swedish Gripen jet fighter crashed after colliding with a bird in southern Sweden on Tuesday, August 21, authorities said, adding the pilot ejected safely.
“It was a bird collision and the pilot had to eject,” Johan Lundgren, spokesman at the Swedish Armed Forces told AFP.
The pilot was on a training mission in the Saab JAS 39 Gripen.
The incident happened eight kilometres (five miles) north of a military air base near the southern Swedish city of Ronneby, and the pilot was taken to a hospital for a check-up.
Authorities said the accident happened in a forested area and no casualties were reported.
In 2017, a Gripen fighter jet crashed in Thailand during an air show, killing the pilot. And in 2015, another jet leased by Hungary skid off the runway at a Czech airbase and was completely damaged.
Sweden reports about 400 such bird trike incidents a year, Charlotte Billgren at the Swedish Transport Agency told the TT news agency.
With reporting from AFP
