A U.S. warplane has crashed in Libya on third night of strikes, Britain's The Telegraph newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The pilot has been rescued by rebels after the warplane crashed due to 'mechanical failure', The Telegraph added on its website.

The plane is an F-15E Eagle. "Just found a crashed US warplane in a field. believe a mechanical failure brought it down," The Telegraph correspondent Rob Crilly said on the Twitter micro-blogging site.

Loud explosions and heavy anti-aircraft gunfire were heard in the Libyan capital city of Tripoli at around 9:00 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) on Monday as a new round of Western-led airstrikes started, a Xinhua reporter said.

F-15E Strike Eagle (98-0131 'LN') of 492nd FS with its blue and white fin tip markings?(File Photo)

The UN Security Council on March 18th adopted a resolution to authorize a no-fly zone over Libya and called for "all necessary measures," excluding troops on the ground, to protect civilians under threat of attack in the North African country.

Top leaders from the United States, Europe and the Arab world on March 19th announced the start of military action against Libyan government forces. French warplanes attacked an air defense site in Tajura, about 10 km east of the Libyan capital of Tripoli at the same night, in a wave of airstrikes against leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces.