4 crew members die in crash during Egypt-UAE air drill

Two Egyptian and two Emirati crew members of a military aircraft have been killed when their plane crashed in Egypt during a joint air drill.

The exact location of the Wednesday incident, reported by the official WAW news agency of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday, has not yet been specified in the report.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian military claimed in a statement that the crash occurred due to a technical problem, but failed to specify the type of the military aircraft or the nature of the technical failure.

Egypt and the UAE enjoy close diplomatic, trade and military ties and cooperate in diverse fields.

In August, UAE warplanes reportedly carried out airstrikes against militants that had taken over control of parts of the Libyan capital of Tripoli by using Egyptian airfields for takeoff and landing.

The UAE, along with other Persian Gulf Arab states, except Qatar, have also sided with Egypt’s military-backed government in outlawing the nation’s most prominent Muslim political group, the Muslim Brotherhood, as a ‘terrorist organization.’

The oil-rich state has also come to the aid of the economically-troubled Egyptian government by providing billions of dollars worth of oil supplies to the most populous African country.