An F/A 18 military jet crashed into a residential neighborhood in San Diego on Monday while attempting to land at a nearby Marine Corp Air Station in Miramar. Two homes were totally engulfed in flames. A mother, grandmother and child were killed and another child is still missing and presumed dead. The father, a businessman, was at work at the time that tragedy stuck his family.
The fighter jet was returning to Miramar after performing landing training on a Navy aircraft carrier. The craft experienced problems and the pilot, flying solo in the two-seater aircraft, was forced to eject and ditch the jet while flying over a neighborhood of 20 homes. He sustained injuries and was taken to a nearby hospital.
The area of the crash was cordoned off while firefighters fought the blaze and searched for victims. The military has jurisdiction over the crash site and immediately launched an investigation.
One neighborhood resident told a reporter from CNN affiliate KFMB that he saw a fighter jet at a very low altitude and “it just spiraled, right out of ‘Top Gun’. Another eye witness observer, Ian Lerner, was a half mile away and reported, “All of a sudden we saw the canopy of the jet explode and go up, and then we saw the pilot blast out of the plane and the parachute open.”
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