Above: AP News photo from the crash site. Below: Smoke from the F-18 Crash taken with my camera phone from the office window. The F-18 was on approach to Miramar Airbase (think Top Gun) when it crashed in University city, about 1 mile short of the runway. There were 2 confirmed fatalities and 2 missing in the impacted house; a mother, 2 children and their grandmother were reportedly in the house. The pilot safely ejected.
Overall, while it is a lot of fun watching the F-18s fly over the office (and I could watch them for hours), incidents like this bring home an awareness that low flying military jets over civilian areas comes with risk. This is the first military jet I recall crashing in a residential area within San Diego. However, a PSA passenger jet crashed in North Park in 1978 with horrific results. Another military jet crashed in 2006 in an uninhabited area perhaps a mile from Scripps Ranch.
