Last night Telegraph journalist, Rob Crilly, was complaining that he was tired and hungry after waiting for hours on a roof for a contact that didn’t come.
So he is no doubt more pleased this morning to find himself with something of a scoop.
An American F-15 Strike Eagle crashed in Libya, seemingly as a result of mechanical failure. The crew of two ejected, and have been recovered.
Despite the efforts of domestic critics to paint the rebels as anti-Western Islamic extremists, those drawn from their homes in the dead of night by the intriguing sight of a US airman engaged in an operation to save their lives, formed an orderly queue to shake the man’s hand and thank him personally.
They him a drink of juice, and shortly afterwards the man was driven to safety by rebel militia. The other crewman was rescued by helicopter and is now on the USS Kearsarge.
Souvenir hunters have been keenly picking over the wreckage.
The plane is reported as operating out of Aviano airbase.
Air operations to enforce the NFZ have moved from attacking fixed anti-aircraft positions to hunting mobile units, as the ‘coalition of the willing’ grows; Spanish and Belgium planes flew their first missions. However a potentially serious, and embarrassing, diplomatic problem looms over the artificial horizon, with Saudi Arabia offering its air force.
Elsewhere a war of words has broken out between Fox News and CNN, after Fox News accused the Gaddafi regime of using a CNN film crew as human shields. The reporter involved, Nic Robertson, has angrily denied that his team was coerced.
A follow up attack on Gaddafi’s compound was called off due to CNN reporting live on an earlier attack which destroyed an admin building.
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