F-35 Pilot Left With 'Serious Injuries' After New Mexico Crash

The pilot of an F-35 fighter plane was seriously injured when it crashed near Albuquerque International Sunport on Tuesday, May 28, Lt Jason Fejer, a spokesman for Albuquerque Fire Rescue, said.

The crash happened shortly after the plane had refueled at Kirtland Air Force Base en route from Lockheed Martin’s facility in Fort Worth to Edwards Air Force Base in California. The crash happened around 1:45 pm, local news said.

“The pilot was able to get out. That pilot was transported with serious injuries, and has been since transported to the hospital. There were two other civilians on scene that were assessed and evaluated on scene. Neither of those resulted in transport,” Fejer said.

The road is going to be closed for “an extended time”, and the “fire has been extinguished”, he added. Credit: Albuquerque Fire via Storyful

Video transcript

Hi.

Hello, I'm Lieutenant Jason Fair Public Information Officer for Albuquerque fire rescue.

Uh earlier today just before 2 p.m. we started getting reports of a possible aircraft down.

It's a 51 delta for it's not a code we see very often.

Uh Burn Leo County was the first on scene here.

They did confirm a downed aircraft and started making a search for the pilot and starting a fire suppression efforts.

Battalion one arrived shortly thereafter, established Unified Command with Albuquerque fire rescue and Burn Leo County.

We also got a response from Kirtland fire who sent three airport crash rescue trucks from on base and they responded off base here to help extinguish extinguish this fire.

Uh The pilot was able to get out.

That pilot was transported with serious injuries and that has been since transported to the hospital.

There was two other civilians on scene that were assessed and evaluated on scene.

Neither of those resulted in transport.

Uh This uh we're here on a university, we're just north of Rio Bravo and the road is going to be, the road is going to be shut down here for an extended time.

Kirtland and the fa will be taking over this investigation.

So we're advising people to please avoid the area.

Uh Let this investigation run its course and they will get things back opened up as soon as possible.

So to recap, we did have an aircraft go down, a pilot was able to escape and was transported to the hospital.

Fire has been extinguished.

They're in the process of cleaning up the scene and kind of mopping up any hotspots.

And that's where we're at for now.

As more information becomes available, it will be released.

Thank you.