Air Force Jet Crash Involved T-38 Talon II Training Jet, Pilots Ejected Successfully

The U.S. military suffered another safety setback today when an Air Force T-38 Talon II crashed this morning near the Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. According to a Fox News report, Pentagon officials said the two pilots ejected safely from the aircraft.

The two pilots were transported to a local hospital for evaluation. Local law enforcement and first responders were on the scene where they extinguished the fire and secured the area. Since the site crash is in a remote location, there were no houses or buildings affected.

According to SputnikNews.com, the T-38 is a supersonic jet used to train pilots how to fly.

Columbus Air Force Base’s Facebook page contains this post.

“T-38 mishap at Columbus AFB, both pilots safe COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. – An Air Force T-38C Talon II crashed at about 8:30 a.m. today in a remote area near Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi. Both pilots ejected from the aircraft safely. Local law enforcement and first responders are on the scene. The pilots have been transported to a local hospital for evaluation.

“First responders have extinguished the fire and are securing the area. There are no houses or other structures in the immediate area of the crash. Additional details will be provided as soon as they become available.”

The base has not yet announced the cause of the crash.

The plane’s full name is the Northrop T-38 Talon and is a two-seat, twin-jet, supersonic jet trainer. It was the world’s first of its kind and is also the most produced. It continues to be used in service since its first flight in 1959.

Last month, CNN reported a U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds pilot was killed when his F-16 jet crashed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. The jet was from the service’s precision demonstration team and crashed during routine training on the Nevada Test and Training Range.

Today’s accident is the fifth U.S. Air Force non-combat aviation crash of 2018. There were a total of seven for last year. The Air Force isn’t the only accident-prone branch of the military. The U.S. Navy had a series of recent accidents, resulting in multiple deaths, as reported by CNN.

Part of President Trump’s agenda is to outfit the military with modern equipment and more training in an attempt to curtail such accidents. Trump asked Congress for $686 billion to fund the military in 2018 and that figure rose to $716 billion for his 2019 budget.