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Virginia Beach Fire Department firefighters continue cleanup efforts after extinguishing a blaze that destroyed buildings when a U.S. Navy F/A-18D fighter jet crashed into an apartment complex in Virginia Beach April 6, 2012. The Navy fighter crashed soon after take-off into an apartment complex in Virginia on Friday, sending fireballs into the sky, heavily damaging half-a-dozen buildings and injuring nine people. All the injuries, including those to the F/A-18 crew, were minor, officials said, but the search of the Mayfair Mews apartment complex was not complete. Both crew members ejected from the aircraft before it crashed into the buildings in Virginia Beach, and one pilot was rescued while still strapped into his ejection seat. REUTERS
A fighter jet that malfunctioned just after takeoff hurtled into a Virginia Beach apartment complex on Friday in a spectacular crash that sent flames and black smoke billowing from the rubble.
The two pilots managed to eject just before impact, suffering minor injuries along with five others on the ground.
Several residents described hearing a loud explosion and looking out their windows to see the red and orange blaze.
In the confusion that followed, two men helped one of the bloodied pilots from the two-seat F18 Hornet move to safety.
"Oh, my God, I heard three really loud explosions, then the black smoke went up high in the sky," said 71-year-old Felissa Ezell, who lives in a townhouse near the crash site.
By evening, emergency crews were searching through the charred remains of the complex, where some 40 apartment units were damaged or destroyed.
No fatalities had been reported.Seven people, including the pilots from nearby Naval Air Station Oceana, were taken to a hospital. All except one of the pilots were released by late afternoon.
Virginia Beach Fire Department Capt. Tim Riley said three residents remained unaccounted for late Friday.
"We don't know if we have working cell numbers, if they've travelled," Riley said. "We don't know if people are staying with other people."
He said crews had done an exhaustive search of about 95 per cent of the apartment complex and would continue searching throughout the night.
"We consider ourselves very fortunate," he said.
The plane had dumped loads of fuel before crashing, though it wasn't clear if that was because of a malfunction or an intentional maneuver by the pilots, said Capt. Mark Weisgerber with U.S. Fleet Forces Command. He said investigators will try to determine what happened.
The jet went down less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Oceana. Bruce Nedelka, the Virginia Beach EMS division chief, said witnesses saw fuel being dumped from the jet before it went down, and that fuel was found on buildings and vehicles in the area.
The plane not having as much fuel on board mitigated what could have been an absolute massive, massive fireball and fire," Nedelka said.
"With all of that jet fuel dumped, it was much less than what it could have been."
The crash happened in the Hampton Roads area, which has a large concentration of military bases, including Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world. Naval Air Station Oceana, where the F/A-18D that crashed was assigned, is located in Virginia Beach. Both the pilots were from Virginia Beach, Weisgerber said. The pilots included a student and an instructor. Weisgerber said he did not know how many times the student pilot had been in the air, but that the
instructor was ``extremely experienced."
Authorities were still scouring through the charred wreckage.
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