JET DOWN

U.S. F-16 Crashes at NATO Airbase

A squadron of U.S. F-16s is based at the NATO base in Germany.

An F-16 Falcon fighter has crashed at a NATO base. The jet went down at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany on Tuesday afternoon, American officials said, according to the Daily Mail. An investigation into the incident is now underway. However, officials confirmed that one person was injured and that the pilot ejected from the jet. The Associated Press reported that U.S. Air Base Spangdahlem said the jet belonged to the 52nd Fighter Wing. The German newspaper Trierischer Volksfreund reported that the plane was on approach to the airbase, but the crash came close to both federal highway B50 and a nearby golf course. Birthe Thomsen, the mayor of the nearby town of Speicher in the Ifel region of Rhineland-Palatinate, told the press that she saw a jet lose altitude quickly before seeing smoke rising. She called emergency services. The cause of the crash is still unknown. A squadron of 20 U.S. F-16s is stationed at the base, the Mail reports.