Marines, firemen, and haz-mat crews work at the site of an F-18 fighter jet that crashed Dec. 8, 2008, in San Diego.
(Lenny Ignelzi/AP Photo )The neighborhood in the University City section of San Diego smelled of jet fuel and smoke. Ambulances, fire trucks and police cars choked the streets. A Marine Corps bomb disposal truck was there, although police assured residents there was no ordnance aboard the jet.
Neighbors described chaos after the jet tore into the houses and flames erupted.
"It was pandemonium," said Paulette Glauser, 49, who lived six houses away. "Neighbors were running down toward us in a panic, of course."
Jets frequently streak over the neighborhood, two miles from the base, but residents said the imperiled aircraft was flying extremely low.
Jordan Houston was looking out his back window three blocks from the crash when the plane passed by. A parachute ejected from the craft, followed by a loud explosion and a mushroom-shaped cloud.
Houston, 25, said a truck exploded after the driver backed over flaming debris and then jumped from the cab yelling, "I just filled up my gas tank."
The Marine Corps said the pilot was part of the Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101, based at Miramar.
An F-18, a supersonic jet used widely in the Marine Corps and Navy and by the stunt-flying Blue Angels, costs about $57 million. An F-18 crashed at Miramar — known as the setting for the movie "Top Gun" — in November 2006, and that pilot also ejected safely.
The crash was near University City High School, where students were kept locked in classrooms after the crash. Barbara Prince, a school secretary, said there was no damage to the campus and no one was injured.
Neighbors jolted by the crash said they initially thought it was the sound of gunshots, a train derailment or tractor-trailer trucks colliding.
"It was quite violent," said Ben Dishman, 55, who was resting on his couch after having back surgery. "I hear the jets from Miramar all the time. I often worry that one of them will hit one of these homes. It was inevitable. I feel very lucky."
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