The pilot, who reported that he was going to eject from the cockpit, was not rescued and his whereabouts were still unknown as of Wednesday night. The plane took off from Tabriz and crashed not far from the Azerbaijani border.

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The crashed plane was procured from Russia. Iran has been modernizing its MiG-29 aircraft fleet over the past two years with the help of the Russian Air Force.

Iran has been struggling to find spare parts for its aircraft due to sanctions imposed by the United States and has tried to compensate for that by indigenously producing various weapon systems and components.

This year it unveiled a new prototype of a fighter jet but experts believe that it is most likely an attempt to reverse engineer the American F-5 fighter jet.

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The IDF did not say whether the aircraft was downed by enemy fire or crashed over a technical malfunction.

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Earlier, Lebanese media aired conflicting reports about the incident, with some saying the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group had downed the drone, and others claiming a Lebanese civilian downed it with a shotgun.

Last month, Hezbollah's Al-Manar television reported that the group had shot down an Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle flying over southern Lebanon, near the Israeli border.

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The state-run IRNA news agency quoted a local official as saying the crash was caused by a technical problem. Abdolhossein Rafipour, the governor of Tangestan, a county in the Bushehr province, says the plane went down near the coastal town at 12:30 p.m. local time.

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"The fighter jet crashed due to technical issues in the Tangestan area. Its pilot and co-pilot are safe," Mehr quoted the governor of Tangestan Abdolhossein Rafiipour as saying.

The purpose of Sunday's flight was not immediately clear. Regular patrol flights are common in the region.

Iran's air force has an assortment of US-made military aircraft purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It also has Russian-made MiG and Sukhoi planes. Decades of Western sanctions have made it hard to maintain the aging fleet.

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The spacecraft Beresheet, built by non-profit SpaceIL and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, crashed on its final descent on Thursday, dashing Israel's hope of becoming the fourth country to manage a controlled lunar landing.

"I have had time to think, over the weekend, about what happened, and given all of the encouragement I got, and the support from people all over the world I have come tonight to announce a new project – Beresheet 2," SpaceIL president and high-tech billionaire Morris Kahn told Israel's Channel 12 TV.

The Google Lunar X Prize Competition, which offered $20 million for the first privately funded venture to make it to the moon, is what first drove SpaceIL to get Beresheet off the ground.

Beresheet made the final cut, but after several deadline extensions, the competition ended last year without a winner.

Private donors were already pledging funds for the new project, Kahn said, but he added that money should come from the public for "a project of the people of Israel".

"We will not rely on government support," he said.

The Beresheet 2 task force would convene on Sunday, he said: "We began something that we shall complete, and we will place our flag on the moon."

IAI said in a statement it would be happy to be part of further space missions in partnership with SpaceIL under Kahn's leadership."

So far, only three nations have succeeded in carrying out a controlled landing on the lunar surface – the United States, the Soviet Union and China.

Who will be the 4th country to land on the moon? #Israel or #India? @owenalterman tells @talexander_i24: #Beresheet2 pic.twitter.com/WYtJo039dq

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) 14 באפריל 2019

Launched from Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket two months ago, Beresheet – Hebrew for "Genesis" or "In the beginning" – would have been the first craft to land on the moon that was not the product of a government program.

The Adelson family owns the company that is the primary shareholder in Israel Hayom. Dr. Miriam Adelson is the publisher of Israel Hayom.

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