A U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet crashed Wednesday in California outside Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake.
According to the U.S. Navy, the status of the pilot is unknown and rescue operations are underway.
At approximately 10:00 a.m PST an F/A-18E crashed near @NAWS_CL. Search-and-rescue efforts are underway.
— flynavy (@flynavy) July 31, 2019
The Inyo County Sheriff’s Office helped to secure the area until military personnel arrived, a spokesperson for the office told CNN.
Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake is located in the Mojave Desert around 150 miles north of Los Angeles. The base is the Navy’s single largest landholding, covering more than 1.1 million acres. The facility is mainly used for research, development, and testing of cutting-edge weapons systems.
The F/A-18E Super Hornet joined the Navy’s fleet in September 2001 and saw its first combat action in 2002 on board the USS Abraham Lincoln in Iraq. The fighter serves as the branch’s primary strike aircraft, costing $70.5 million each.
This latest incident comes as series of accidents this summer have led to the deaths of five and injuries to 43 American military members. A 2019 congressional report revealed that more than 5,000 troops were killed in training-related accidents between 2006 and 2018.
