US F-35B crashes near Miramar air base in California, pilot safe

A US Marine Corps F-35B stealth fighter has crashed near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, California. The pilot ejected safely and was taken to a local medical facility for evaluation and treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. Firefighters also responded after a vegetation fire broke out near the crash site.

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The Marine Corps said the aircraft went down on Friday near the Miramar air base. Aerial video showed a plume of black smoke rising from a dirt field where the wreckage landed, with military and firefighting vehicles nearby. White fire retardant was visible on the ground, and at least one person was seen spraying the wreckage with a hose.

San Diego Fire said its crews were on scene to deal with the vegetation fire and referred further questions to the base. The crash adds to a year in which several military aircraft accidents have been reported in the United States. According to the Aviation Safety Network database cited in the source material, at least seven other military aircraft have crashed in the country this year.

The most serious of those incidents involved a B-52 bomber that crashed shortly after takeoff in California's Mojave Desert in June, killing all eight people on board. The latest incident did not result in reported fatalities, but it did involve a modern and expensive combat aircraft. The F-35B is one of the short takeoff and vertical landing variants of the F-35 family.

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The source material says the US Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force together operate more than 630 F-35 aircraft, and that a single F-35B costs about $109m. It also notes that the wider F-35 programme is expected to cost roughly $2 trillion over its lifetime, reflecting the scale of the fleet and the long-term maintenance burden attached to it. That makes any crash of the type significant not only for safety reasons but also for operational readiness and cost.

Marine Corps Air Station Miramar has a long association with US military aviation. The source material says the base once hosted the Navy fighter pilot training school featured in the original Top Gun film and was known as Fightertown USA in its heyday. The school was later moved to Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada after the base was transferred to the Marine Corps in 1996.

The crash therefore took place at a site with a prominent place in US military aviation history, even though the current incident appears to have been contained quickly. What remains unclear is what caused the aircraft to go down and whether the fire caused any wider damage beyond the immediate crash area. The Marine Corps has said the pilot is in stable condition, but it has not yet given a public account of the sequence of events.

#F35B #USMarineCorps #Miramar #SanDiego #militaryaviationaccident

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