Yemeni Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21

MiG-21s were used by the Yemeni Air Force in ground attack role during Yemen's fight with Shi'a rebels in the north. On October 2, 2009 the rebels announced that they shot down a Yemen Air Force MiG-21 fighter jet in the al-Sha'af district in northern Yemen. A senior Yemeni military official has denied the claim and said the plane ran into a mountain peak because of a technical fault. Contradicting state media, another Yemeni military commander told the AFP news agency that the aircraft had been "flying at low attitude" when it was hit.