The pilot, Lt. Col. David Goldfein, Commander of the 555th Fighter Squadron, who ejected safely and was promptly evacuated in a standard US Army procedure, by a C-SAR team.
The initial claim that the aircraft suffered a mechanical failure was later superseded by official sources as well as by the result of independent research, including the analysis of the recording presented here. Everything indicates that the downing of this aircraft was due to a heavy damage caused by a detonation of at least one surface-to-air missile exploding in the proximity of it.