An F-35C Lightning II prepares to launch off the USS Carl Vinson in the Middle East on April 10. (Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Isaiah Goessl/U.S. Navy via AP)
The pilot safely ejected before a Navy F-35C stealth jet crashed Wednesday evening near Naval Air Station Lemore in the Central Valley, officials reported.
Authorities received a report that a military jet had crashed and was engulfed in flames around 6:40 p.m., the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said in a social media post. Responding deputies, firefighters, California Highway Patrol officers and EMS personnel found the wreckage in a cotton field just north of the air station.
The pilot was found with a parachute in a nearby field, the sheriff’s office said. He was flown to a hospital for evaluation and was expected to be OK.
Firefighters used a bulldozer to cut a path to the jet so fire engines could get close enough to extinguish the fire, the sheriff’s office said.
“NAS Lemoore can confirm an aviation incident on the operations side of the installation. At 1830, an F-35C attached to the VFA-125 Rough Raiders went down not far from NAS Lemoore,” officials said in a post on X.
“We can confirm the pilot successfully ejected and is safe. There are no additional affected personnel.”
The F-35C is the version of the stealthy joint strike fighter designed to operate from the Navy’s aircraft carriers. It has longer wings and a larger fuel tank than the Air Force version of the plane.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.