SAN DIEGO - Three University City residents were killed Monday and another was missing after a disabled fighter jet crashed into their neighborhood and exploded in flames moments after the pilot safely ejected.
The F/A-18D Hornet plunged to the ground near Cather Avenue and Huggins Street, about a mile northwest of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, just before noon, according to San Diego police and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The pilot, who had been on a training flight over the ocean and was heading toward the military base when the accident occurred, parachuted onto a brushy slope near University City High School. Medics took him to Balboa Naval Hospital for an evaluation.
The crash and resulting blaze destroyed two homes, damaged three others and sent a thick column of black smoke into the sky.
Emergency crews found the remains of three people, whose identities were not immediately confirmed, in the scorched rubble of one of the gutted houses. Another resident of that home remained unaccounted for in the early evening.
I lived for about a year just north of the base about midfield, maybe a mile or so from where the crash occurred. We used to hear the "sound of freedom" all the time as the F-14s were flying in and out of there (Top Gun was still run out of there at that time). The only crash that occurred while I lived there involved one of the Blue Angels who was killed during the arrival air show right before the big air show weekend.
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