One pilot has died and another was injured after a U-2 spy plane crashed in a rural area in Northern California on Tuesday morning.
The high-altitude plane crashed not long after takeoff in what the Air Force described as a training mission for the two pilots. Early word suggested they had both safely ejected from the flight, but officials later announced the death and injury.
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The jet reportedly came from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base north of Sacramento, the L.A. Times reports. The last U-2 crash to take place near the base was in Oroville in 1996, when a pilot and a woman in a parking lot were killed.
The U-2 was designed during the Eisenhower administration, when it was used as a method for spying behind the Iron Curtain. It has been redesigned many times, and is slated for retirement in 2019.
[LA Times]
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