On Wednesday at 10 p.m., a U.S. Navy F-A-18E Super Hornet jet crashed into the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Southern California while maneuvering in a training mission and attempting to land aboard an airplane carrier.
The incident took place less than six hours after a Marine jet had gone down in a suburban community just east of San Diego.
Fortunately, the pilot had ejected from the plane and was later discovered drifting at sea. The plane has not been recovered, according to Navy Sources. USA Today reported that the plane had been based at the Naval Air Station in Oceana, Va.
In the first crash, a Harrier AV-8B jet plummeted into a residential community in Imperial, CA about 90 miles east of San Diego on Wednesday at 4:20 p.m. The downed plane incinerated the front yard of one home and caused severe damage to structures of three others. One of the homes’ roof caught fire when parts of the burning plane landed on it. Again in this incident the pilot was able to safely eject himself from the plane, and there were no injuries reported.
Adriana Ramos, 45, whose home is less than a block from the crash, said her “whole house moved. It felt like a bomb was thrown in the backyard,” she said.
Christopher Garcia, 11, was enjoying a television program a couple blocks away with his family when he heard the explosion. “It felt like an earthquake,” he said. He quickly ran outside to see a man floating down in a parachute.
The boy observed “a mushroom cloud of black and red smoke” hovering above the house with the collapsed roof. He then noticed that the garage of the house next door was burning. He saw a woman yelling and crying outside and heard her say, “That’s my house!”
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