21 Oct 2015

Pilot killed as US fighter jet crashes in East Anglia

The American pilot of a fighter jet is killed in a crash in farmland near the town of Ely.

The incident with the FA-18 Hornet jet happened in Redmere, near Ely in Cambridgeshire.

A police spokesman said “We can confirm that the aircraft was a military aircraft. It had taken off from RAF Lakenheath. There is believed to have been one person on board, and there has been one confirmed fatality.”

There are reports the plane encountered problems with refuelling shortly before the crash, but a spokeswoman for the US Marine Corps said she could not confirm this.

Emergency services were sent to the scene near the Cambridgeshire/Suffolk border.

A Cambridgeshire Police spokesman said: “Emergency services are currently at the scene of a plane crash on farmland in Redmere, Ely. The military aircraft which had taken off from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk came down at about 10.30am this morning.

“We can confirm one fatality and believe there was just one person on board the aircraft.”

Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue said they were alerted at 10.30am and sent two crews to the scene.

RAF Lakenheath

The accident occurred just west of the RAF base at Lakenheath, which has hosted US Air Force units and personnel since 1948.

On 8 October 2014 a US Air Force F-15 from the same base crashed in Lincolnshire during a training excercise.

On that occasion the pilot ejected safely, but an eyewitness reported that the plane had flown on, unmanned, for “a good mile”, before crashing near houses and a school, raising safety fears for local people.