Chinese military plane crash kills 1, injures 2

Beijing, June 9: A Chinese military jet crashed in a residential area in central China’s Hubei Province on Thursday, killing one person and injuring two others in the country’s third aviation accident in over two months.

The J-7 fighter jet of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force crashed in the residential area in Xiangyang city, the state-run CGTN reported. One person was killed and two others were injured, besides damage to residential buildings. The pilot ejected successfully.

The pilot and the injured people have all been sent to the hospital for treatment, the report said. The cause of the accident and the casualties are being further investigated and verified, the report said. The plane crashed in the residential area near the airport, setting off fire to several buildings, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported. State broadcaster CCTV’s military channel reported that the J-7 fighter jet crashed during training.

Videos of the crash posted on social media showed several houses on fire at the scene. Laohekou Airport is now mainly used as a training site for new fighter pilots from the Air Force, the Post report said. There have been several

other cases of fighter jets crashing during training flights in China.

In 2015, a Chinese air force pilot parachuted to safety moments before his aircraft crashed into a hillside. Two years before that, a military pilot died when his fighter jet crashed during night training in eastern Zhejiang.

Thursday’s crash is the third accident involving planes in China since March. Last month, over 40 people were injured when a passenger plane of China’s Tibet Airlines with 122 people veered off the runway and caught fire.