Fighter jet, small plane crash; 2 die

Associated Press

MONCKS CORNER, S.C.

An F-16 fighter jet smashed into a small plane Tuesday over South Carolina, killing two people and raining down plane parts and debris over a wide swath of marshes and rice fields.

The two people aboard the smaller Cessna were killed, and the plane was completely destroyed, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said. The pilot of the F-16 ejected and “is apparently uninjured,” he said.

A press release from Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter said the pilot, Maj. Aaron Johnson from the 55th Fighter Squadron, was taken to Joint Base Charleston’s medical clinic for observation.

The fighter jet crash-landed into woods around the privately owned Lewisfield Plantation, an estate dating to 1750.

“We heard the plane crash. And then we took off from where I was at, I guess I was about a half-mile from it, when we saw a cloud of smoke,” said Leo Ramsey, who’s worked at the plantation for about 30 years.

He and two other co-workers went out to the flaming spot where the jet had crash-landed into some of the wooded acreage around the plantation, Ramsey said. They found burning metal, splintered trees and a crater where the empty jet crashed, he said.