Courtesy of Lockheed Martin
- The missing F-35 fighter jet crashed in South Carolina on Sunday.
- Now, we have a great description of what happened.
- A local retiree described his whole house shaking with a boom when it crashed.
If you've ever wondered what a crashing F-35B Lightning II fighter jet sounds like, Randolph White has you covered.
The 72-year-old South Carolina retiree told local TV channel WCBD that he was shaving in the bathroom when he heard a noise: the scream of a fighter jet that went missing after its pilot ejected over South Carolina on Sunday.
"I heard a screeching. Between a screech and a whistle. I said, 'What in the world is this?' And I heard a boom, and my whole house shook," White told the news outlet.
At first, White thought the crash in rural South Carolina could have been a meteorite but knew whatever it was, it had to be flying pretty low since his house was "pretty solid, and it shook," White said.
—WCBD News 2 (@WCBD) September 19, 2023
White said his neighbors were lucky not to get hurt when the multi-million-dollar jet crashed nearby; there's a church not far from the crash site, he told WCBD.
The F-35 — an advanced fighter and one of America's most expensive weapons systems — went missing Sunday after a "mishap" during a training flight. The Marine Corps pilot of the fighter jet and a wingman in a separate aircraft were flying near Joint Base Charleston when something went wrong, and the F-35 pilot was forced to eject as storms moved through the area.
According to the Associated Press, the pilot parachuted away from the malfunctioning jet and ended up landing in someone's backyard. But the military lost track of where the uncrewed jet flew off to.
Authorities asked the public for help finding the jet after the pilot ejected. A debris field confirmed to be the remains of the pricey plane was found on Monday in South Carolina, about 80 miles away from where the pilot landed.