F/A-18 crash kills 3 in San Diego - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

F/A-18 crash kills 3 in San Diego

SAN DIEGO — The pilot of the F/A-18D that crashed into several San Diego homes was in stable condition at San Diego Naval Medical Center, a Marine Corps official said Monday afternoon. Three people on the ground were killed in the crash and ensuing blaze, San Diego officials said.

The pilot of the Hornet, who ejected before the crash, was a Marine Corps aviator, said Maj. Jay Delarosa, a spokesman for 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

The pilot, who was assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101, had taken off from the Navy’s aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, which is conducting carrier qualifications off the Southern California coast, Delarosa said. The F/A-18 was preparing to land at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego when the jet plunged into a suburban neighborhood in University City, an area of single-family homes that sits across Interstate 805 from the west end of the air station’s flight line.

The plane crashed around noon Monday, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.

Three people were killed in a house where two children, a mother and a grandmother were believed to be inside at the time of the crash, but fire officials did not immediately know who died. Another person remained missing.

Three homes were destroyed, Fire Department spokesman Maurice Luque said. Firefighters were hosing down a pile of rubble 3½ hours after the crash with smoke still rising from it. The jet’s twin engines were clearly visible in the wreckage. A piece of cockpit and a parachute ended up in the side yard of a home several hundred yards from the crash site.

About 20 homes were evacuated, and it was unclear when residents would be allowed to return, Sanders said. A Marine Corps bomb disposal truck was at the scene, although police assured residents there was no ordnance aboard the jet. Authorities told observers to leave because the smoke was toxic.

There was no initial cause for the crash, though a retired Navy aviator who spoke with the pilot said the cause was mechanical.

Ret. Lt. Cmdr. Steve Diamond said he drove to the scene after seeing the plane go down and spoke with the pilot, who he said was a first lieutenant in his 20s.

"We had a little pilot-speak about what happened and he got on his cell phone to call his command," Diamond said. "I can say with a fair degree of certainty that there were mechanical issues with the engine."

Diamond declined to speculate what problems the plane may have had.

Sandy Huffaker, a freelance photographer who lives in the neighborhood almost a mile from the crash site, said he had just arrived home with his wife when he heard the loud roar of a jet plane overhead and looked up. “I saw him eject,” Huffaker said. “It sounded like it was going down.”

“I see a guy in a parachute coming down, and I heard ... like, two loud explosions,” he said. The crash happened on a mostly sunny day with clear visibility, he added.

Students at nearby University City High School were kept locked in classrooms, but there was no damage to the campus and no one was injured, said Barbara Prince, a school secretary.

Steve Krasner, who lives a few blocks away in the earthquake-prone region, said he first thought the shaking generated by the crash was the long-anticipated “Big One.”

He was in his kitchen when he heard two loud explosions and looked outside, then heard a larger blast.

“The house shook; the ground shook. It was like I was frozen in my place,” Krasner said.

“It was bigger than any earthquake I ever felt. The flames were billowing overhead.”

Ben Dishman, 55, said he heard what sounded like “a loud gunshot” followed by an explosion.

“It was quite violent,” said Dishman, resting on his couch after recent back surgery. “I hear the jets from Miramar all the time. I often worry that one of them will hit one of these homes. It was inevitable. I feel very lucky.”

The last crash at Miramar happened Nov. 30, 2006, when a two-seat F/A-18 Hornet jet crashed into a brushy training area. The pilot, the sole person aboard, ejected safely. Miramar is home to some 10,000 Marines with 3rd MAW and includes VMFAT-101, one of two F/A-18 training squadrons that train Marine and Navy personnel in the multi-mission fighter jet.