An F-16 jet reportedly smashed into a small airplane over the southern US state of South Carolina on Tuesday, killing two people and raining aircraft parts and debris over a wide region of marshes and rice fields.
The two people aboard the smaller Cessna died when it was destroyed in the collision, US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) spokesman Peter Knudson said.
The F-16 pilot ejected and “is apparently uninjured,” he said.
US Air Force Lieutenant Jenny Hyden, a spokeswoman for Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina, said the F-16 pilot was taken to the base for observation.
CAUSE UNKNOWN
There are not yet any details on what caused the collision or where the planes were traveling, though the NTSB is investigating.
Debris was scattered across a wide area, although there were no reports of anyone being hurt or any homes being damaged on the ground, Berkeley County, South Carolina, spokesman Michael Mule said.
There are homes in the area about 32km northwest of Charleston, though it is not densely populated, Mule said.
A witness reported that the military plane broadsided the Cessna, Berkeley County Coroner Bill Salisbury said.
Officials said during a news conference that most of the debris was in a marshy area, including a rice field.
Wayne Ware told the Post and Courier of Charleston that he was going for a walk when he heard the crash happen.
He did not see the initial impact, but heard it, he said.
CAMPGROUND DEBRIS
“I turned around and I saw the jet. Pieces started falling out of the sky,” Ware said, telling the newspaper the jet’s engine landed at a campground.
The air force has flown F-16s since the 1970s, although very few active-duty squadrons still fly them. F-16s from Shaw Air Force Base, about 56km east of Columbia, routinely fly training missions over eastern South Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean.
The smaller plane was a Cessna 150, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration, a two-seat plane that debuted in 1959 and remains one of the most common aircraft in the US.
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