SMYRNA, Tenn. (AP) — A Blue Angels F/A-18 fighter jet crashed Thursday near Nashville, Tennessee, killing the pilot just days before a weekend air show performance, officials said. 
 
 A U.S. official said the pilot was Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. According to his official Blue Angels biography, Kuss joined the elite acrobatics team in 2014 and accumulated more than 1,400 flight hours. 
 
 Harry Gill, the town manager in Smyrna just outside Nashville, said Thursday that the pilot was the only casualty and no civilians on the ground were hurt. 
 
 The Navy said in a news release that the pilot was beginning to take off during an afternoon practice session when the crash happened. Five other F/A-18 jets landed safely moments after the crash. 
 
 "My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of the Blue Angels after this tragic loss. I know that the Navy and Marine Corps Team is with me. We will investigate this accident fully and do all we can to prevent similar incidents in the future," Adm. John Richardson, the Navy's top officer, said in a Facebook post. 
 
 This is the second fighter jet crash of the day for the military's elite fighter jet performance teams. A member of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds crashed in Colorado following a flyover for the Air Force Academy graduation where President Barack Obama spoke. That pilot ejected safely into a field. 
 
 Kuss was a native of Durango, Colorado, and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the Marines in 2006. He had previously served in Afghanistan before joining the Blue Angels. 
 
 In Smyrna, retired teacher Brenda Lewis and her 21-year-old grandson had spent much of the day in her backyard near the airport watching the Blue Angels fly overhead. 
 
 She's seen them many times before. 
 
 "But this afternoon, something made me really want to watch them," she said. "They looked like they were having such a good time playing up there." 
 
 She went inside to bake a chocolate pie when she heard a loud boom. She didn't think too much of it at first because the airport is just on the other side of her tree line and she's used to loud noises. 
 
 Then she heard sirens and went around the corner. She saw the smoke rising and police cars arriving. She went inside because she didn't want to see any more. 
 
 "I'm always so fascinated by them, the anticipation of it all," she said of their airshow. "Then something tragic like this happens. My heart is just broken." 
 
 Phil Dennis, a manger at Auto Masters of Smyrna nearby, was standing on the business' back deck with another employee watching the planes practice above. 
 
 "I'm still shaken up about it," he said, hours after watching the plane go down. 
 
 Dennis grew up going to the airshows. His first love was aviation, he said, and when he was a kid his mother used to take him to see the planes. Now a father himself, he planned to take his own children, ages 5 and 6, to the show on Saturday morning. 
 
 He watched one plane coming out of a loop and look like it was flying too fast toward the ground. It disappeared behind a tree line, and he said his heart stopped. He said he could hear the engines roaring; then all he heard was silence. 
 
 "I was so worried. I thought maybe he'd have time to recover," Dennis said. "But he didn't." 
 
 A massive fireball erupted from behind the trees. 
 
 "I felt it down my spine," he said. "It shocked me, I paused for a minute and questioned whether it really happened. I thought it can't be real." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Baldor reported from Washington. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The US Marine Corps pilot died after his plane came down in fields at Redmere 
 
 A US Marine Corps pilot has died in an F-18 jet crash, close to an RAF base. 
 
 The jet came down on farmland in Cambridgeshire, with the alarm raised at 10:30 BST. 
 
 The Hornet aircraft, which had taken off from RAF Lakenheath but was not connected to the base, crashed four miles from RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk. 
 
 The pilot was the only crew member, police said. The aircraft was part of a fleet of six fighter jets due to fly to California, the US air force said. 
 
 The remaining five FA-18 Hornets safely diverted to RAF Lossiemouth airfield in Moray. The aircraft had been en-route from Bahrain and were scheduled to fly to their base in Miramar. 
 
 Image caption What appears to be crash debris is scattered across a field 
 
 Miramar, base of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, said in a statement: "A third Marine aircraft wing FA-18/C Hornet belonging to Marine Attack Fighter Squadron 232 stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar crashed in the vicinity of RAF Lakenheath at approximately 05:30am. 
 
 "The incident is currently under investigation." 
 
 The US Marine Corps added: "I can confirm that the pilot ejected, but I do not have additional information at this time. Our deepest condolences go out to the family and friends of the pilot. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The five remaining FA-18 Hornets landed at RAF Lossiemouth 
 
 "The cause of the crash is still unknown." 
 
 A witness to the crash, Karen Miles-Holdaway, from Redmere, said she thought the pilot did very well to avoid any houses. 
 
 "You could feel the ground move so what I think I heard was probably the impact," she said. 
 
 Image copyright Twitter/@Eagle_chaser Image caption One of the F-18 jets which had been at the base had been photographed earlier in the day 
 
 F-18 Hornet facts 
 
 The McDonnell Douglas F-18 Hornet is an all-weather fighter and attack aircraft which was introduced in the 1980s 
 
 The US Navy said it proved itself in the 1991 Gulf War in air-to-air combat and its record-breaking reliability 
 
 Its two jet engines can push it to 1.8 times the speed of sound 
 
 The jets can cost anything between about $30m (£20m) to $60m (£40m). 
 
 "My daughter was driving from Littleport and she saw this flash of light and plume of smoke." 
 
 The US ambassador to the UK, Matthew Barzun, said he was tracking the situation closely. 
 
 "We're grateful for everyone's concern," he added. 
 
 "The loss in Cambridgeshire today is terrible news, my thoughts and prayers are with all involved." 
 
 Col Robert G Novotny, commander of the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath posted on Facebook: "Please keep the families, the unit and the USMC [US Marine Corps] in your thoughts and prayers as we navigate this tragedy." 
 
 Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service said it sent two crews to the crash site, which were stood down within two hours. 
 
 "No firefighting or rescue action was required, but they remained on scene in a support capacity," the spokeswoman said. 
 
 The Humber Coastguard said it had also scrambled its helicopter to the scene. 
 
 Image copyright Simon Farrow Image caption Aviation enthusiasts said several F-18s were at RAF Lakenheath at the weekend 
 
 Image caption The area is dotted with a few houses, and mostly agricultural land 
 
 Ian Barmer, BBC Look East 
 
 The skies above the Fens are very busy. 
 
 USAF F-15s are based at RAF Lakenheath and there are big refuelling tankers at RAF Mildenhall. There are our own Tornadoes at RAF Marham and RAF Typhoon jets at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. 
 
 As well as routine take-offs and landings, jets fly out over the Fens to get to bombing ranges in the Wash. 
 
 Jets also visit two USAF bases or use them as staging posts. Recently we had a visit by A10 tank-busters to Lakenheath. 
 
 The F-18s are flown by the US navy and the one that crashed, we understand, had recently been on bombing missions over Syria and was flying temporarily from Suffolk before heading back to the US. 
 
 Given the amount of activity in the area, accidents are rare. 
 
 The last one of note was in October 2014 when an American F-15 came down in farmland near Spalding during a training exercise. 
 
 It came down near a school but no-one was hurt and the pilot ejected.
– A Blue Angels F/A-18 fighter jet crashed Thursday near Nashville, Tennessee, killing the pilot just days before a weekend air show performance, officials said. A US official said the pilot was Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss, the AP reports. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. According to his official Blue Angels biography, Kuss joined the elite acrobatics team in 2014 and accumulated more than 1,400 flight hours. Harry Gill, the town manager in Smyrna just outside Nashville, said Thursday that the pilot was the only casualty and no civilians on the ground were hurt. The Navy said in a news release that the pilot was beginning to take off during an afternoon practice session when the crash happened. Five other F/A-18 jets landed safely moments after the crash. "My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of the Blue Angels after this tragic loss. I know that the Navy and Marine Corps Team is with me. We will investigate this accident fully and do all we can to prevent similar incidents in the future," Adm. John Richardson, the Navy's top officer, said in a Facebook post. This is the second fighter jet crash of the day for the military's elite fighter jet performance teams. A member of the US Air Force Thunderbirds crashed in Colorado following a flyover for the Air Force Academy graduation where President Barack Obama spoke. That pilot ejected safely into a field. And in Texas Thursday, three soldiers were killed and six were missing after an Army truck was washed from a low-water crossing and overturned in a rain-swollen creek at Fort Hood, the Texas Army post said. Three soldiers were rescued from the swift water and were in stable condition Thursday afternoon at Coryell Memorial Healthcare System in Gatesville.