Pilot ejects ahead of T-38 training jet crash in Mississippi

An instructor pilot in Mississippi had to eject from a T-38 Talon training jet Monday after an unknown malfunction caused the plane to crash shortly after takeoff. 

The jet from Columbus Air Force Base, Miss., crashed around 1 p.m. local time south of the base on private property. 

Emergency officials from the base took the instructor to a nearby hospital and no fatalities were reported, according to a press release from the 14th Flying Training Wing. 

“We had a T-38C flying with the 49th Fighter Training Squadron that was rendered inoperable and unrecoverable upon initial takeoff,” Col. Jeremy Bergin, the base’s vice wing commander, later told reporters during a press conference Monday evening. 

Bergin said it is still unknown what caused the aircraft to malfunction but that there is an “active investigation” into the matter. 

The T-38 is a two-seat, supersonic aircraft, though only the instructor pilot was flying in the jet ahead of the crash. 

The mishap occurred after two T-38Cs took off Monday for routine training, each with one instructor aboard. They were flying in two-ship formation when one jet experienced a malfunction, Bergin said, adding that the pilot involved was “highly experienced and capable.” 

The Air Force has experienced a series of noncombat crashes involving the T-38 in recent years, some deadly. 

In February 2021, an instructor and student pilot in a T-38 from Columbus AFB crashed and died while training outside of Montgomery, Ala. 

Prior to that in November 2019, two airmen were killed in “an aircraft mishap” involving two trainer jets at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma. 

And in May 2018, two pilots were forced to eject from a T-38 near Columbus AFB before the plane crashed in a remote part of northeast Mississippi.  

Another T-38 crash  killed a pilot in November 2017 in Texas. 

The Air Force — along with the Navy and NASA — uses the T-38 to train pilots across the country but has planned to phase it out for a new Boeing-made aircraft known as the T-7A Red Hawk. The first of those aircraft won’t be delivered until at least 2023.  

Asked about the plane’s safety, Bergin said the T-38 was “an older model plane that has been very safe and reliable for approximately 60 years and we continue to fly them every day.” 

He also said that every investigation “is going to find items worthy of future consideration, and we won’t know what those items are until after the investigation completes,” adding that “if there is something that requires us to change our procedures, we will.”