logo
Navy F-35 jet crashes outside California air base after pilot safely ejects

Navy F-35 jet crashes outside California air base after pilot safely ejects

A Navy pilot safely ejected from an F-35 jet moments before it crashed into a Fresno County cotton field in a fiery blaze Wednesday evening. The crash occurred about 6:30 p.m., not far from Navy Air Station Lemoore, the U.S. Navy said in a statement.
The wreckage of the military jet burned as deputies with the Fresno County Sheriff's Office, paramedics, firefighters and officers with the California Highway Patrol responded to the field near Dickenson and Cadillac Avenues, north of the base. Emergency officials on the ground found the pilot with a parachute in a nearby field, the Fresno County Sheriff's Office announced in a Facebook post.
A helicopter transported the pilot to a hospital for evaluation.
'He is expected to be OK,' the Sheriff's Office said.
Video footage shared by the Sheriff's Office showed firefighters using a bulldozer to clear a path to the jet so they could drive up to the wreckage and put out the fire.
The F-35 jet was attached to Strike Fighter Squadron 125, also known as the 'Rough Raiders,' according to the Navy.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Environmental journalist Alec Luhn missing following hike in Norway
Environmental journalist Alec Luhn missing following hike in Norway

USA Today

time2 hours ago

  • USA Today

Environmental journalist Alec Luhn missing following hike in Norway

Norwegian officials are searching for a Wisconsin-born environmental journalist who has been reported missing following a hike towards the country's Fogelfonna National Park. Alec Luhn, 38, was last seen the afternoon of July 31 on route to the park, according to a Facebook post from his wife Veronika Silchenko. Slichenko told the New York Times that Luhn was an experienced hiker and that it was not uncommon for him to go on solo hikes. 'He sent me the route, and I knew there wasn't good coverage in the area. I always track his location, and when it stopped moving, I wasn't immediately worried, because I am used to this,' she told Norwegian newspaper VG. Silchenko told The New York Times that she and Luhn had visited family in Bergen before the hike, before she returned to England on July 31. He did not fly back to England as scheduled on Aug. 4. 'I just really want him back,' Silchenko said to the Times. 'I can't sleep or eat properly. It's very hard not to know anything.' USA TODAY has reached out to Silchenko for further comment. On Aug. 5, the Norwegian Red Cross posted on X that it had concluded the day's search without finding Luhn. Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported that the search was halted due to heavy rainfall, rising water levels in the rivers and dangerous terrain. 'Tomorrow, a large team will continue the search in collaboration with the police and several climbing groups,' the Norwegian Red Cross' post reads. USA TODAY has reached out for further comment. Lost hiker award-winning environmental journalist Luhn is an award-winning journalist from Stoughton, Wisconsin, according to a release by the University of Wisconsin-Madison announcing his selection for the Sharon Dunwoody Science Journalist in Residence for Spring of 2025. He served as a foreign correspondent in Russia for the Guardian, Telegraph and VICE News for a decade before the invasion of Ukraine – according to a profile by the university. Following the invasion, he switched to environmental reporting, earning the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Kavli Science Journalism Award – the oldest science journalism award in the U.S. His work on the environment has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, National Geographic, New Scientist and Scientific American. Kathleen Culver, director of the UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – a part of the USA TODAY Network – that Luhn has plans to work on a project at the university in 2026 following the residency. Luhn, a graduate of the journalism school, was on campus for a week in April but mostly works remotely from the U.K., Culver said, adding she's known Luhn since he was a student on campus. 'I'm really worried,' Culver said. 'He was heading out back to the U.K. and he said, 'I knew I would love working with students, but I didn't know I would love it this much.'' Luhn wants to do more mentoring of students next year and Culver is working on him returning to a role at the school, she said. 'I am very much looking forward to this being a survival story,' Culver said. 'And him having lots of things to tell students as he mentors them.'

Annual Back to School Bash this weekend at Mylan Park
Annual Back to School Bash this weekend at Mylan Park

Dominion Post

time5 hours ago

  • Dominion Post

Annual Back to School Bash this weekend at Mylan Park

MORGANTOWN — Pantry Plus More's annual Back to School Bash takes a year's worth of work to pull together. Thousands of hours volunteered and tens of thousands of dollars raised for a return on investment that's way more about feeling than finance. That payoff arrives between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday when an anticipated 1,600 school-age kids fill the Mon County Center in Mylan Park. 'What I love about the Bash is that it gives volunteers like myself a real-life glimpse into the work that you're doing,' event chair Amanda Bolyard said. 'The kids are so excited. Watching a kid pick out a backpack with a character they like or a color they want is an amazing feeling. You watch them go through the supply lines and when they leave, they're so excited about what they have. It's really an indescribable experience.' The yearly event began in 2018 with the goal of giving every kid in Monongalia County the opportunity to show up on the first day of school with a brand new backpack and all new school supplies – the point being a child who isn't fixated on what they don't have can instead focus on learning. It's the same idea behind the pantries the nonprofit keeps stocked in a number of Monongalia County schools. 'The bash is important to our work as education is the pathway out of poverty,' Bolyard said. 'The mission of [Pantry Plus More] is to help eliminate hunger and other obstacles that inhibit students' ability to achieve their educational goals.' Items will be available for free on a first-come-first-served basis to all students Pre-K through 12th attending a Monongalia County school. Offerings will include backpacks, school supplies and hygiene products. There will also be vendor resource tables providing families information about various support services in the area. The Monongalia County Health Department will be on hand to offer physicals for $20 as well as information and registration for WIC. While organizers encourage pre-registering online through the PPM Facebook page ( students can register the day of the event. As of Tuesday morning, more than 1,400 kids had been registered. Volunteers can also sign up via a link available through Facebook or at Beyond volunteering, the community can support the Back to School Bash through monetary donations or in-kind donations of items like spiral notebooks, composition notebooks, loose leaf paper, markers, crayons, pens, pencils and other new school supplies. Bolyard said the Bash is the largest single-day event undertaken by PPM. It takes a year of preparation and the support from community partners like Northeast Natural Energy, which provided $10,000 to purchase hygiene products. Other supporters include Chestnut Ridge Church, Mon Health and the Hazel Ruby McQuain Charitable Trust. 'Just seeing one kid come through and be excited to go to school instead of the alternative feeling of shame or embarrassment – seeing one child like that makes it all worth it,' Bolyard said. 'It's very special.'

Zoo Asks Visitors to Donate Their Pets to Feed the Carnivores, Gets Fed to the Lions on Social Media
Zoo Asks Visitors to Donate Their Pets to Feed the Carnivores, Gets Fed to the Lions on Social Media

Gizmodo

time9 hours ago

  • Gizmodo

Zoo Asks Visitors to Donate Their Pets to Feed the Carnivores, Gets Fed to the Lions on Social Media

A zoo in Denmark has made an unusual request: if you feel like it, send us your pets so we can keep our lovely predator population well-fed. As one would expect, there's been a bit of public outcry over the 'Chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs form an important part of the diet of our predators,' the zoo said, in a Facebook post, noting that such animals are 'reminiscent of what' predators would 'naturally hunt in nature.' It added: 'In zoos, we have a responsibility to emulate the animal's natural food chain – for both animal welfare and professional integrity.' 'If you have a healthy animal that has to leave here for various reasons, feel free to donate it to us,' it added. 'We ensure natural behavior, nutrition and well-being of our predators.' If potential donors are concerned about their loved ones meeting a violent end, the zoo has some gentle words of reassurance: 'The animals are gently killed by trained staff and are then used as feed. In this way, nothing is wasted – and we ensure natural behavior, nutrition and well-being of our predators.' Oh good. The zoo had previously made a similar appeal to the public, asking that horses (another notably beloved category of animal) be donated to the zoo so that they could be euthanized and fed to the facility's predator population. The online outrage was, of course, swift and merciless. The FB post's comment section is alive with alarmed web users. 'A deeply perverse and degrading mindset,' one user said (translated from Danish). 'How sick are you to think of something like that,' another asked. 'This is a joke right, no one would bring his healthy pet to a zoo so they can kill it and feed it to there animals,' yet another person ventured. The zoo was predictably forced to address the outrage. 'After great international interest, we have chosen to close the comment track on this lookup,' the facility hilariously said, in an edit to the post. 'We understand that the call arouses emotion and interest, but hateful and vicious rhetoric is not necessary – and we urge to maintain the good tone. We elaborate and answer questions in the inbox or by mail.' Gizmodo reached out to Aalborg Zoo for more information on this unusual policy and will update our story if they respond. It may be the case that people who work in a particular industry for awhile forget what the 'normies' on the outside are like. If you get used to seeing a cute, fluffy bunny eviscerated by a giant mouth every day, it may become tempting to assume that everybody is used to such a sight. At the very least, Aalborg's FB post is clear evidence that zoo people aren't necessarily pet people. If they had been, they would have realized that there is little in this world that they could have said that would have perturbed the intended audience more. They might as well have been encouraging visitors to donate their own human children as tiger bait.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store