I got this off a news network in the area. News is still coming in.


Navy F18 crashes in Va. Beach
I-264 shut down in both directions at Laskin

Updated: Friday, 06 Apr 2012, 12:44 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 06 Apr 2012, 12:28 PM EDT

Rachel West
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) - The Navy confirms to WAVY.com that an F18 jet has crashed in Virgnia Beach Friday afternoon.

Grazia Moyers, spokeswoman for the Virginia Beach Police Department, told WAVY.com just before 12:30 p.m. what police believe is a military aircraft has gone down.

Commander Rosi with the Navy told WAVY.com the plane was an F18 Strike fighter squadron 106.

Further information is not available at this time.

Police are responding to the scene at this time and will assist the military and the State Police, Moyer added.

Virginia State Police have shut down Interstate 264 at Laskin Road in both directions, Sgt. Anaya with the VSP said.

Virginia Department of Transportation traffic cameras show thick, black smoke rising from the Birdneck Road area Friday afternoon around 12:30 p.m.

WAVY.com has a crew on the way to the scene and will have more as soon as it comes in.

Injuries?

So far injuries are an unknown. I'm guessing civilians in the apartments that were hit. Hopefully, since it's the middle of the day on a school and work day injuries are to a minimum. I haven't heard about the pilot or passengers on the plane.

Update: both pilots made it out, one is in the hospital. It was a fighter jet so there were no other passengers. There has been one other person taken to the hospital in the area, but it is unsure of whether they were from the apartments or just in the vicinity.

I just thought Id point out that looks like a space plane.
I hope not to much dmg was done

>>6, So far there are 7 reported injuries, no deaths. There was some pretty serious damage, at least two apartment buildings were completely taken out. There was some pretty bad fire, but not as bad as it could have been if the pilots didn't dump a lot of their fuel as they were going down.

I live nearby and almost all of the local news channels are literally blowing up on this. Best of wishes to those that live nearby.

i swear when some kids at my school got wind of this they blamed it on the gays in the milatary killing our men. and i yelled What The F*** in the middle of class and got a detention.

I feel like a dork for brining this up but it reminds me of the "training excercise" in Iron Man. I'm not saying that there are metal men flying around but an event like this raises questions. Something like this is interesting and i would like to know more on the why part.

>>6 yeah i was thinking that it was something from Battle LA.

yeah, if that's really the picture of the plane that went down. that's way bigger then an f-18.

>>11 I hate to be this guy but, no you're wrong. This picture has a few people standing next to it and it seems to be the right size to me.

Just thought I'd say, no one died from this crash. Due to kids being in school and adults being at work most people weren't home. The few who were got out in time. The pilots managed to eject before they crashed and bailed out most of their fuel as they were going down.