Crashed Swiss jet mysteriously ‘lost altitude’

The Swiss air force has no immediate explanation as to how an F/A-18 fighter jet suddenly lost altitude and crashed in France on Wednesday, injuring the pilot. Air force commander Aldo Schellenberg said that there was no mid-air collision. The F/A-18 was involved in an air combat training exercise with two Tiger aircraft in the cross-border training airspace between Switzerland France. The fighter, with just the pilot on board, took off from the Payerne airbase in Switzerland and crashed outside the French city of Besançon. Schellenberg praised the French emergency services for rescuing the pilot, whose condition in hospital is described as “non-life threatening”. “I am happy that the pilot in this accident could be saved,” Schellenberg said at a news conference in Bern. The F/A-18 fighter was one of a fleet of 34 procured by the Swiss air force in the mid-1990s. There are now 31 left in service.  In October 2013, one of the same type of aircraft was destroyed ...