Fighter jets collide during training

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An F-15 fighter jet crashed Monday after colliding in midair with another military jet during a training exercise, Air Force officials said.

The other jet landed safely, and no one was seriously injured.

The pilot of the F-15C ejected and was taken to a military hospital, said Airman Jennifer Anton, a spokeswoman at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks. The pilot did not have serious injuries, she said.

The pilot of the other jet, an F-16C that landed safely, was uninjured, she said.

It appeared that the F-16’s wing had been clipped by the F-15C, said Airman Justin Weaver, another Eielson spokesman.

It was not immediately clear what caused the collision at 11:23 a.m. local time during a training exercise about 90 miles east of Fairbanks in Alaska’s interior, Anton said. A board of Air Force officers will investigate.

“I saw it from a distance when it landed, and it didn’t really look like there was anything wrong with it,” Weaver said.

It was mostly cloudy with scattered showers at the time of the collision, the National Weather Service said.

The crash happened at the Pacific Alaska Range Complex, a 60,000-acre training ground.

The $27 million F-15C that crashed was from Langley Air Force Base, Va., and the F-16C was from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.

The Alaska Air National Guard took the F-15C pilot to Bassett Army Hospital at Fort Wainwright, also near Fairbanks, said McHugh Pierre, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

The training exercise includes more than 1,400 military members from the United States, Singapore and Australia.