Jet Fighter Crashes; Pilot Safely Ejects

An Air Force F-16 fighter jet crashed and burst into flames Saturday morning less than 20 yards from the main taxiway at Palmdale Airport, sending civilian aerospace workers scrambling for cover.

The pilot, Capt. Craig Fisher, ejected just before the aircraft hit the ground, witnesses said.

Fisher, a flight instructor at Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, Ariz., was in good condition, according to Lt. Col. Scott C. Allen, commander of Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale.

Air Force officials refused to comment on the cause of the crash.

The plane plunged straight down, striking the ground with such force that it burrowed in, leaving only a portion of the tail section visible from the terminal.

Nearby, workers dismantling the SR-71 Blackbird, a spy plane that is being retired, ran for cover when they saw the plane coming down, witnesses said.

No one at the airport was injured.

“It was like the blink of an eye and it was over,” said one witness, who asked not to be identified. “Flames were shooting 200 feet into the air.”

Johnny Smart of Quartz Hill, a Rockwell flight electrician who was working in a nearby hangar, said he heard a couple of explosions and ran outside. He said he looked up and saw the canopy coming off, the pilot parachuting down and the plane in a dive.

“We saw this big fireball,” Smart said.

Allen said the plane, which is based at Luke, is valued at about $35 million. It was on a routine, cross-country training flight. The Air Force officer would not provide details of the route except to say that the plane’s destination was Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.

An America West flight arriving from Phoenix after the crash was held on the runway for an hour because of debris on the taxiway. An outgoing Las Vegas flight was delayed for 30 minutes.