By Le Figaro
Posted 6 hours ago, updated 1 hour ago
The Spanish Air Force clarified on Twitter that “the pilot successfully ejected” and that the plane crashed “inside the base.”
Impressive, the videos were shared by many media and netizens. This Saturday morning, a Spanish Air Force F-18 fighter jet crashed “near the Zaragoza air base”. Several images show the plane maneuvering in the air for several seconds. It then regains altitude before hurtling toward the ground and crashing in an explosion. Meanwhile, the pilot parachutes near a column of smoke.
The Air Force was quick to confirm on Twitter that the pilot had “successfully ejected” before the disaster. He “is already in the hospital and his life is not in danger,” said the army a few hours later.
According to the Spanish press, the accident happened due to a “problem” with the pilot’s training on Saturday. The incident happened just after noon. No further information has been given about the reasons for the tragedy. According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the pilot has more than 1,000 flight hours on the account. It would be captain Daniel Pérez Carmona. Firefighters were at the crash site. According to El Mundo, the accident also happened while the pilot was rehearsing maneuvers scheduled for June 10, the open day for families at the Zaragoza base.
This is not the first time that the Air Force has faced such a situation: in 2017, an accident occurred at the Torrejon de Ardoz base near Madrid, in which a pilot died shortly after takeoff.