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On March 21, the Yemeni Air Defense Force [allied to the Houthis] hit an F-15 warplane of the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) with an “air defense missile” over the central province of Saada, according to the Yemeni al-Masirah TV.

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A video released by the Houthis media wing clearly showed an unidentified warplane being hit by what appears to be a Soviet made R-27T missile. The Saudi-led collation revealed last November that the he Houthis had managed to turn Soviet-made R-27T air-to-air missiles into ground-to-air missiles.

The R-27T is guided by infrared homing, and has the “fire and forget” feature, which makes it easy to convert it into a ground-to-air missile. The R-27T’s range is 70km when it’s launched from air. Nonetheless, the missile will have a shorter range when the missile it is launched from the ground.

The Saudi-led coalition has not commented on the incident yet, likely because the warplane managed to return to its home airbase or crashed in an area under the coalition control.

This was the second time when the Houthis announced they hit an F-15 of the RSAF over Yemen this year. On January 8, the Houthis hit an F-15 over the Yemeni city of Sanaa.

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