An Arab coalition aircraft was downed in Yemen’s Al-Jawf province, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Saturday.

The Tornado fighter jet, belonging to the Royal Saudi Air Force, crashed at 11:45pm on Friday, the coalition’s spokesperson Turki Al-Maliki said.

Al-Maliki said the jet crashed while on a mission of close air support to units of the Yemeni National Army.

The pilots used the evacuation chairs before the plane crashed, but Houthi militia fired at them, Al-Maliki added, holding the militants responsible for the deaths.

He said the coalition launched a “combat search and rescue operation” at the site of the crash site in Al-Jawf and that it was investigating “possible collateral damage.”

Earlier, dozens of Houthi militants were killed in the southern city of Taiz as the Iran-backed militants pushed to break the army’s lines of defenses and to reimpose their siege on the city, an army spokesperson told Arab News.

Col. Abdul Basit Al-Baher said on Wednesday attacks on government forces on all fronts around the city had escalated in an attempt to make a major breakthrough.

“The national army has foiled all attempts to make gains,” Al-Baher said, adding that loyalist forces had also shelled a Houthi training camp in the west of the city.