Mother of deceased pilot with call sign Juice allowed to board F-16

The commander of the Air Force, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk, reported this on Facebook, Ukrinform reports.

He recalled that he had promised the woman to “at least sit” in the F-16 at the farewell ceremony for the pilot in August last year.

“...Unfortunately, Juice was not able to wait for his deployment to the United States for training. And today his mother is in the cockpit of the F-16. She continues her son's work and will do everything to make our wings stronger,” the commander noted.

As reported by Ukrinform, on August 25 last year, two L-39 aircraft collided in the sky over Zhytomyr region while performing a combat mission. The collision killed three pilots of the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade: Majors Viacheslav Minka and Serhiy Prokazin, as well as Captain Andriy Pilshchikov, call sign Juice.

The Ukrainian Air Force later said that Pilshchikov had been dreaming of F-16s in the Ukrainian sky.