F-18 Down

One of the more unusual aspects of life in La Jolla is the daily presence of the United States Air Force at the nearby Miramar Air Station.

Miramar is a Marine Airbase, and you will often see F-16's and F-18's taking off and flying west into the Pacific.

They go out there ( about 200k's out...) to practice landing and taking off from aircraft carriers. As you do when you are in the US Air Force..

Yesterday around midday a F-18 Hornet aircraft involved in one of these exercises lost power in one engine and was ordered back to the Miramar Air Station, which is about 10k's inland .. as the pilot crossed the coastline he lost power in the other engine, and his aircraft fell like a stone into a suburban area just east of where we live.. Four people killed on the ground, the pilot ejected.

We live roughly at the top of the "U" in University City on this map.

Questions are being asked about why the pilot did not ditch the plane in the sea. In a military town like San Diego, this sensitive stuff.