Syrian air force authorities said on Thursday they had lost contact with a warplane on a training mission in the south of the country and some news reports said the MiG-21 had made an emergency landing in neighboring Jordan.
But there was no immediate official confirmation of reports by anti-government activists that the pilot had defected rather than bomb targets in Syria.
The official SANA news agency quoted an unidentified “official source”as saying the warplane was on a training flight when contact with it was lost in midmorning near Syria’s southern borders. The pilot was identified as Col. Hassan al-Mirei Hamadeh.
A defection would offer a propaganda coup to the rebels who have been fighting to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad for the past 16 months.
An activist, who spoke in return for anonymity, said the pilot flew his plane into Jordan after refusing orders to bomb targets in Syria. The source of the activist’s information was not immediately known.
News reports quoted an unidentified official in Jordan as saying the warplane made an emergency landing at the King Hussein air base in Mafraq, northern Jordan.
The MiG-21 is a Soviet-era warplane supplied to many of Moscow’s allies.
In the conflict with armed rebels, Syria had avoided using its air force until recent weeks, fearing its deployment might prompt Western calls for a no-fly zone. The authorities were also reluctant to give the impression that they had lost control on the ground, analysts said.
Most pilots in the Syrian air force belong to the country’s Sunni Muslim majority, who also form the backbone of the resistance, and there were fears that some of them might defect.
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