KABUL: A U.S. fighter aircraft came under fire while flying in eastern Afghanistan last week, a U.S. military official in the capital Kabul said on Monday.
The F-16 encountered "small arms fire" in the province of Paktia on Oct. 13, which hit the aircraft's stabilizers and damaged one of its munitions.
"The pilot jettisoned two fuel tanks and three munitions before safely returning to base," the official said, adding that the pilot was uninjured.
He declined to say at what altitude the plane had been flying or where it took off and landed.
A Taliban spokesman had claimed its fighters shot an enemy plane down in eastern Afghanistan on Oct. 13. NATO said at the time there was "no operational reporting to support those
claims".
It was the third safety incident involving coalition military aircraft in Afghanistan this month.
On Oct.2, a U.S. military transport plane crashed after take-off, killing 11 personnel of NATO's international mission in Afghanistan, Resolute Support, in what officials described as an accident.
On Oct. 11, five members of Resolute Support were killed and five injured when a British military helicopter crashed in a "non-hostile" incident in the capital Kabul.
Reuters
