Three People Dead, One Missing After Jet Crash

By Ed Joyce / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published December 8, 2008 at 1:04 PM PST

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

Three people are confirmed dead after a disabled Miramar-based fighter jet crashed and exploded in flames in a University City-area neighborhood. The pilot safely ejected. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has

Three People Dead, One Missing After Jet Crash

(Photo, right: Firefighters head to battle a fire after a military jet crashes into a residential neighborhood in University City. Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images )

Three people are confirmed dead after a disabled Miramar-based fighter jet crashed and exploded in flames in a University City-area neighborhood. The pilot safely ejected. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has details.

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The F/A-18D Hornet plunged to the ground near Cather Avenue and Huggins Street, about a mile northwest of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

The jet crashed shortly before noon into homes near the end of a cul de sac.

Paulette Glauser was inside her home, just a few doors away, when the plane crashed.

Glauser: I was upstairs studying. We heard a horrific bang, It's hard to even describe it, it was so loud and so intense. You know a bang like that you don't even relate it to a plane, it's just so impossible. We all went running out of our houses and the flames shot up. It seemed gigantic. It was the biggest fire I've ever seen.

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Glauser also pointed rescue crews to the pilot's location just below her backyard deck.

Glauser: I called them over and they went through my deck and they could, we could see the pilot in the trees maybe 50 feet away.

Medics took the pilot to Balboa Naval Hospital for an evaluation.

The pilot had been on a training flight over the ocean and was heading toward the military base when the accident happened.

The crash and resulting blaze sent a thick column of black smoke into the sky.

Military officials said some kind of equipment malfunction forced the pilot to eject but the investigation is continuing.

Ed Joyce, KPBS News.

Ed Joyce

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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