A Navy training plane crashed Tuesday morning in Alabama after taking off in Florida, raining debris on a nearby property as two pilots ejected.
An instructor pilot and student aviator ejected from a T-6B Texan II around 10:50 a.m., according to a statement provided to American Military News. They’ve been treated for minor injuries.
The pilots took off from Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Florida and ejected near Barin Naval Outlying Field outside Foley, Alabama, about 45 miles to the southwest. The cause of the crash is unclear, and an ongoing investigation spans multiple scenes, local news outlet WKRG reported.
Two black boxes from the plane crashed near a local man’s home, with one parachuting down feet away from his front door, local news outlet WKRG reported.
The aircraft was “discovered in a remote, unpopulated area,” according to the statement from the Chief of Naval Air Training Public Affairs Office. Volunteer firefighters struggled to rescue the pilots until a local man helped with his all-terrain vehicle, WKRG reported.
An anonymous witness described the plane crash to WKRG.
“It cut off all the tops of the pine trees and then it landed,” he said. “There’s a big burn area but there’s really not much left of the plane. If you didn’t know it was a plane you probably wouldn’t be able to tell it was a plane. There are a few orange pieces and white pieces.”
The Navy describes the T-6B Texan II as a two-set turboprop trainer whose main purpose is to train Navy and Marine Corps pilots. There are currently 245 of them serving Navy student pilots at Whiting Field and Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.
An instructor and student pilot were killed in 2020 when one of the planes crashed into an Alabama neighborhood, setting a house and two cars on fire. There were no other casualties in that incident.
