SAN DIEGO — A military fighter jet preparing to land at a Marine base — after flying off the USS Abraham Lincoln — crashed in a densely populated San Diego neighborhood Monday, killing three people on the ground and destroying three houses.
The pilot of the F/A-18D Hornet jet ejected safely, according to a statement from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
Mayor Jerry Sanders said three people on the ground were killed. Fire officials said the deaths were at a home where two children, a mother and a grandmother were believed to be inside. Officials did not immediately know who died.
Three homes were destroyed, Fire Department spokesman Maurice Luque said. Firefighters were hosing down a pile of rubble 3 1/2 hours after the crash with smoke still rising from it.
About 20 homes were evacuated, and it was unclear when residents would be allowed to return, Sanders said.
The plane crashed near Interstate 805 shortly before noon Monday about two miles from the base, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.
The pilot was in stable condition at a naval hospital in San Diego, said Miramar spokeswoman 1st Lt. Katheryn Putnam. The crash occurred as the pilot was returning from training on the Everett-based aircraft carrier Lincoln, off the San Diego coast.
Jordan Houston, 25, was looking out his back window three blocks from the crash when he saw a low-flying plane. A second parachute with an empty seat ejected from the aircraft, and he heard an explosion.
He reported a mushroom-shaped burst of flame and said he skateboarded toward the scene and found a pilot walking around.
A truck backed over the flaming debris, Houston said, and the driver jumped out and yelled, “I just filled up my gas tank.” The truck exploded shortly afterward.
There was little sign of the plane in the smoky ruins, but a piece of cockpit sat on the roof of one home. A parachute lay in a canyon below the neighborhood.
The middle-class neighborhood of half-million-dollar homes smelled like a brush fire. Ambulances, fire trucks and police cars choked the streets.
A Navy bomb disposal truck was at the site, and Marines were talking with police. Authorities told observers to leave because the smoke was toxic.
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,” he said. “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 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.”
A large, busy area of the city was blocked off to traffic, creating a long backup on I- 805, which remained open.
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.
The F-18 is a supersonic jet used widely in the Navy and Marine Corps and by the Navy’s stunt-flying Blue Angels. An F-18 crashed at Miramar in November 2006, but the pilot ejected safely.
Miramar, well known for its role in the movie “Top Gun,” is home to about 10,000 Marines. It was operated by the Navy until 1996.
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