COLUMBUS, Miss. — Nobody was killed when U.S. military plane crashed Monday in Mississippi, south of an Air Force base that conducts pilot training, the Air Force said in a statement.
The T-38A Talon aircraft crashed about 1 p.m., roughly 20 miles south of Columbus Air Force Base, according to Senior Airman Jessica Haynie, a public affairs specialist at the base.
Haynie told The Associated Press that the plane is based at the Columbus facility, which is in northeastern Mississippi near the Alabama border. A brief statement from the base said a T-38A Talon aircraft had “an in-flight emergency.”
The pilot, whose name was not immediately released, was taken to a local hospital.
“We continuously train our pilots to react appropriately for all emergency situations such as the incident that occurred today,” Col. Jeremy Bergin, 14th Flying Training Wing vice commander, said in a news release. “We’re thankful the pilot ejected safely, and we appreciate the continued support of the Columbus community and our community partners.”
The crash is under investigation.
Columbus Air Force Base is home of the 14th Flying Training Wing of Air Education and Training Command’s 19th Air Force. The wing has an average of 260 flights each day on three parallel runways.
Columbus Air Force Base is about 150 miles northeast of Mississippi’s capital city of Jackson.
