Fighter jet crashes in Virginia
By RYAN GORMAN
A U.S. military fighter jet has gone down in Virginia.
The F-15C went down in the western part of the state near the town of Deerfield just before 9:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Witnesses told local media they saw an ejection shortly before the aircraft slammed into the ground, but the Pentagon said the pilot's fate is not known.
The plane's pilot was flying the from a national Guard base in Westfield, Massachusetts, to Barnes Air National Guard base in New Orleans, military officials told the Associated Press.
The F-15 went down in what appears to be farmland in a rural, sparsely populated area. There do not appear to be any injuries or harm caused to people on the ground.
Weather was clear and calm at the time the plane went down.
The pilot was flying a training exercise and radioed an inflight emergency shortly before the incident, officials said.
Witness Gary Beck wrote on Twitter that he heard two big booms and saw a mushroom-type cloud rise above the crash site.
"It's the loudest noise I've ever heard," 63-year-old Rebecca Shinaberry, who lives on a farm about two miles away, told the AP. "Just shook the ground, and from my house we could just see a big plume of smoke."
F-15 fighter jets can fly as fast as 1,875 mph, according to the Air Force. Each one costs $30 million to build. The Air Force has about 250.
No further information is available at this time.
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