1 killed, 1 injured in crash of U-2 spy plane

One Air Force pilot was killed and another was injured Tuesday morning when a U-2 spy plane they were flying crashed in Sutter County during a routine exercise, military officials said.

Officials at Beale Air Force Base east of Marysville (Yuba County) said the two-seat training plane went down about 9 a.m., shortly after taking off from the base. Both pilots ejected from the aircraft before the fiery crash, which sparked a blaze that consumed a little more than 250 acres of vegetation, authorities said.

The identities of the pilots were not released Tuesday, nor was the cause of the crash. The plane was in the middle of a training mission, said Brooke Brzozowske, a spokeswoman for the Air Force.

“Everything about the flight today was routine,” Col. Larry Broadwell, commander of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at the base, said at a news conference.

The U-2 went down near West Butte and Pass roads in the Sutter Buttes, a remote area of volcanic domes formed about 1.5 million years ago. The crash site is about 50 miles north of Sacramento.

Initial reports from the military’s Air Combat Command indicated the pilots landed safely, but officials at Beale Air Force Base later released a statement confirming that one pilot died in the incident and the other on board was injured.

The plane was part of the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron, the military’s oldest flying unit. One person on board was an instructor and the other a student, Broadwell said. He did not say which of the two flew the plane or which one died.

“Ejection seat technology is wonderful, but certainly not foolproof,” Broadwell said. “We’re focused on the families, making sure they get the support they need.”

Twenty fire engines, one air tanker and a helicopter were used to put out the wildland fire sparked by the crash. It was fully extinguished just before 1 p.m., said Chuck Smith, a spokesman for Sutter County.

Video footage taken by a witness and provided to KCRA shows the plane flipping as it tumbles to the ground with two white objects, presumably parachutes, overhead.

Pass Road, the only public roadway through the buttes, will be closed for several days as military officials investigate the crash, Smith said.

The last U-2 plane that crashed out of Beale was in 1996, when the aircraft landed in a busy commercial area of Oroville, killing the pilot and a person on the ground.

U-2s can reach speeds in excess of 400 mph and fly as high as 70,000 feet, or more than 13 miles. The military uses them to collect imagery and signals for intelligence analysts. Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov