Pakistan Air Force F-16 crashes in capital city of Islamabad

A Pakistani Air Force pilot was killed when a fighter jet crashed on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad on Wednesday morning, an air force official said.

The F-16 aircraft crashed while practicing maneuvers for a Pakistan Day airshow set for March 23.

The jet went down in Shakarparian, a wooded hilly area on the outskirts of the capital.

The pilot, identified as Wing Commander Nauman Akram, could not eject in time and died in the crash, the spokesperson said.

A board of inquiry has been ordered to determine the cause of the accident, he added.

This was the third crash involving an air force aircraft this year, following two in a single week in February.

The last one was on Feb. 12 when a training aircraft came down near Takht Bhai, some 63 kilometers (39 miles) from Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The pilot managed to eject safely.

Just days earlier, on Feb. 7, a Mirage aircraft of the Pakistani air forces, on a routine operational training mission, crashed near the town of Shorkot in Punjab.

The pilot ejected safely and no loss of life or property was reported on the ground.