Two people died after a military jet crashed near Alabama’s Montgomery Regional Airport, according to county officials.
The plane was a two-seater T-38 jet, director of the Montgomery Emergency Management Agency, Christina Thornton, told Fox News on Friday night. Authorities asked drivers to avoid crossing Selma and Lamar.
Although local media reported that the National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to the scene, a spokesman said the agency had no jurisdiction over the accident because it involved “a military aircraft on a military mission”.
A T-38 Talon flies over the Gulf of Mexico in March 2017. (Photo by U.S. Air Force: Master Sgt. Burt Traynor / Launched)
The T-38 is used by the Air Force and the Navy for training. The Alabama National Air Guard has three main bases across the state, located in Birmingham, Dothan and Montgomery, near the crash site.
Thornton said National Air Guard officers based at the same airport responded to the scene alongside local police, firefighters and other first responders, which is standard procedure.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
“We train together, we respond together,” said Thornton.
Military officials did not immediately respond to Fox News’s requests for comment.
The airport’s executive director, Marshall Taggart Jr., told WSFA 12 that the plane crashed near a residential area but did not hit any structure on the ground.