SAN DIEGO — A fighter jet returning to a Marine base after a training exercise on the USS Abraham Lincoln crashed in flames in a San Diego neighborhood Monday, killing three people on the ground, leaving one missing and destroying two homes.
The pilot of the F/A-18D Hornet jet ejected safely just before the crash around noon at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Explosions rocked a neighborhood of half-million-dollar homes, sending flames and plumes of smoke skyward.
“The house shook; the ground shook. It was like I was frozen in my place,” said Steve Krasner, who lives a few blocks from the crash. “It was bigger than any earthquake I ever felt.”
Three people were killed in a house where two children, a mother and a grandmother were believed to be at the time of the crash. No names have been released. The San Diego Union-Tribune said on its Web site Monday night that one of the children was missing.
A search through the debris of the two destroyed homes was suspended Monday evening and expected to resume this morning, police spokeswoman Monica Munoz said.
As the jet lifted off the Lincoln’s deck Monday, the pilot quickly knew he was in trouble, possibly with a malfunction in one of the plane’s engines. He radioed the air controller at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, who ordered the emergency landing.
As the plane crossed over land en route to Miramar, more problems struck, possibly “flame-out” of the second engine. The plane lost altitude and wobbled.
Within seconds, the plane nosed downward and picked up speed, clipping the top of a jacaranda tree and smashing into a home. Skid marks could be seen on the driveway.
Jason Widmer, who was working in the neighborhood, talked to the pilot after he ejected and landed. The pilot said he had tried to steer to into a brushy canyon to avoid homes.
“He was pretty shook up,” Widmer said. “And pretty concerned if he had killed anyone. He had seen his bird go into a house.”
The Marine Corps said the pilot, described as a lieutenant in his 20s, was taken to Naval Medical Center San Diego with minor injuries.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the pilot told several witnesses that the jet lost its first engine over the Pacific Ocean, and a decision was made to try to return to Miramar on one engine. The second engine failed when the plane was on final approach, he said, according to the newspaper’s Web site.
Miramar spokeswoman 1st Lt. Katheryn Putnam confirmed that the pilot was returning from training on the Everett-based aircraft carrier Lincoln off the San Diego coast when the plane went down.
Putnam had no details on a possible cause. Investigators will review information from a flight data recorder, and there was no indication the pilot was using alcohol or drugs, she said.
Authorities said smoke rising from the wreckage was toxic and evacuated about 20 homes. Residents of all but six were allowed back Monday evening.
There was little sign of the plane in the smoking ruins, but a piece of cockpit sat on the roof of one home, and a charred jet engine lay on a street near a parked camper. A parachute was visible in the canyon below a row of houses.
The neighborhood in the University City section of San Diego smelled of jet fuel and smoke. Ambulances, fire trucks and police cars choked the streets. A Marine Corps bomb disposal truck was there, although police assured residents there was no ordnance aboard the jet.
Neighbors described chaos after the jet tore into the houses and flames erupted.
“It was pandemonium,” said Paulette Glauser, 49, who lived six houses away. “Neighbors were running down toward us in a panic, of course.”
Jets frequently streak over the neighborhood, two miles from the base, but residents said the imperiled aircraft was flying extremely low.
Jordan Houston was looking out his back window three blocks from the crash when the plane passed by. A parachute ejected from the craft, followed by a loud explosion and a mushroom-shaped cloud.
Houston, 25, said a truck exploded after the driver backed over flaming debris and then jumped from the cab yelling, “I just filled up my gas tank.”
The Marine Corps said the pilot was part of the Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101, based at Miramar.
An F-18, a supersonic jet used widely in the Marine Corps and Navy and by the stunt-flying Blue Angels, costs about $57 million. An F-18 crashed at Miramar — known as the setting for the movie “Top Gun” — in November 2006, and that pilot also ejected safely.
The crash was near University City High School, where students were kept locked in classrooms after the crash. Barbara Prince, a school secretary, said there was no damage to the campus and no one was injured.
Neighbors jolted by the crash said they initially thought it was the sound of gunshots, a train derailment or tractor-trailer trucks colliding.
“It was quite violent,” said Ben Dishman, 55, who was resting on his couch after having 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.”
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