Jordan pilot ejected over Syria after 'technical failure'
Arab News - 27 December, 2014
http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?id=731881&news_type=Top&lang=en

Technical failure caused a Jordanian pilot captured by the Islamic State
group in Syria to eject after flying at low altitude, activists and a
monitoring group told AFP.

Muaz Al-Kassasbeh “was flying at a high altitude to start with. He hit the
brick factory and then disappeared from sight,” said Obada Al-Hussein, an
activist from IS-held Raqqa who spoke to AFP via the Internet.

Raqqa is the self-proclaimed IS “capital.”

“Then the plane flew back, and this time smoke was coming out of it. I
believe there was a technical failure,” Hussein said.

Another activist from the city, Abu Ibrahim, also spoke of a “technical
failure.”

“The plane fell in an area called Hamra Ghannam, in the eastern countryside
of Raqqa,” said Abu Ibrahim, who fled IS persecution in Raqqa but who
continues to be well informed on events there.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a similar account.

“Sources in the area saw the plane flying very low. There was a technical
failure. The sources then saw IS members fire heavy machine guns and
shoulder-fired missiles at the plane,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel
Rahman.

“The pilot ejected, after the technical problem made it impossible for him
to return to a higher altitude,” he added.

Nael Mustafa, another Raqqa activist, told AFP: “The pilot was at a low
altitude, and then IS fire hit his plane.”

Their accounts came hours after the Jordanian military denied IS claims that
it shot down one of its warplanes.

The US military has also dismissed the militants’ claim to have hit the jet
with an anti-aircraft missile, saying “evidence clearly suggests that ISIL
(IS) did not down the aircraft.”

The crash was the first warplane from the US-led coalition lost since air
strikes on IS began in Syria in September, and marks a major propaganda
victory for the Sunni extremist group.

Jordan is among a number of countries that have joined the air raids against
IS.

Coalition warplanes have carried out regular strikes around Raqqa, which IS
has used as its de facto capital since declaring a “caliphate” in June
straddling large parts of Iraq and Syria.