U.S. officials report the pilot of a military jet was killed Wednesday when it crashed near a British air base.
Cambridgeshire Fire Services said the plane was a supersonic F-18 Hornet that crashed on farmland in Redmere, near Ely, a rural area about 70 miles north of London, the BBC reported. It's unclear when the plane crashed exactly, but an alarm alerting authorities to the crash was raised at 10:30 a.m. local time.
Police say the plane had taken off from the Lakenheath air base in eastern England, and confirmed there was only one fatality.
"There is believed to have been one person on board, and there has been one confirmed fatality," the police said, according to the Associated Press.
The Air Force is investigating the incident to determine what led to the crash. In the meantime, officials from Lakenheath and another nearby USAF air base at RAF Mildenhall said further details will be released shortly.
Lakenheath, home to Europe's only F-15 fighter wing, is the largest USAF-operated base in England, with 4,500 active-duty military personnel and 2,000 British and U.S. civilians, according to its website, Reuters reported.
Despite it's prestige, Lakenheath is not a stranger to tragedies concerning pilots stationed there. In 2014, four USAF crew members died when their helicopter hit a flock of geese and crashed during a training mission, while in 2001 two single-seat F-15Cs crashed during a training mission over Scotland, killing both pilots.
