CAIRO — Two air force pilots from the United Arab Emirates were killed on Monday when their warplane crashed while fighting over Yemen, according to Saudi Arabia’s official news agency.

The news agency blamed a “technical malfunction” for the crash, but the claim was impossible to verify independently. Local media reported that the plane, a French Mirage, had crashed in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden, and showed pictures of the wreckage.

Saudi Arabia announced the deaths in its capacity as the leader of a coalition of Arab states that has been fighting a rebel group in Yemen known as the Houthis for almost a year.