BEAUFORT, S.C. -- A military plane crashed in coastal South Carolina on Friday, authorities said. The Marine Corps said the pilot of the single-seat aircraft ejected safely.

The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said the crash was reported about 11:45 a.m. near the Grays Hill community. The plane was an F-35B. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that this marks the first crash of the U.S. military's newest and most expensive aircraft. On Thursday, the Marines announced the aircraft's first use in combat in Afghanistan.

In a statement, Marine Corps Capt. Christopher Harrison said the pilot was being evaluated by medical personnel. No civilians were injured, Harrison said.

The plane belonged to a Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 (VMFAT-501), stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, which is about 4 miles from the crash site.

Authorities asked people to avoid the area.

The cause of the crash was under investigation, Harrison said.</s>(Reuters) - A U.S. military F-35B fighter jet crashed near the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina on Friday, for reasons that are under investigation, local law officials and the U.S. military said.

The pilot, the only person aboard the craft, ejected safely and was being checked for injuries, said a Pentagon spokesman, adding that there were no other injuries.

The jet crashed just before noon local time. It was a Lockheed Martin F-35B, a short take-off/vertical landing version of the F-35, said a U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It was the first crash of an F-35 fighter jet since they became operational in 2006, said another military official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity. Friday’s incident also marked the first time a pilot had ejected from an F-35B, the official said.

Neither military nor local officials immediately offered a cause for the crash. Military officials said the crash was under investigation.

Lockheed referred Reuters to the military for comment on the incident.

The F-35B stealth fighter jet was used by the United States in combat this week for the first time, against the Taliban in Afghanistan, after taking off from an amphibious assault ship in the Arabian Sea.

Israel in May was the first country to use the F-35 stealth fighter in combat.

The crash came on the same day that the Pentagon announced an $11.5 billion contract for 141 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed, which lowers the price for the most common version of the stealthy jet by 5.4 percent.

The plane in the South Carolina crash was one of 245 F-35 fighter jets in the U.S. military, a Pentagon official said, and one of a total of 320 F-35 jets being flown around the world.

Under the new contract signed on Friday, the next deliveries of F-35B jets will cost about $115 million each, military officials told Reuters.

The F-35B is the most expensive of three variants of the F-35, which also include the F-35A conventional take-off and landing version, and the F-35C, used aboard aircraft carriers.

Lockheed is the No. 1 U.S. defense contractor.</s>(Reuters) - A U.S. military F-35B fighter jet crashed near the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina just before noon local time on Friday, local law officials and the U.S. military said.

The pilot, the only person aboard the craft, ejected safely and was being checked for injuries, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said.

The jet that crashed was a Lockheed Martin F-35B, a short take-off/vertical landing version, said a U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Neither military nor local officials immediately offered a cause for the crash.

The crash occurred on the same day that the Pentagon announced an $11.5 billion contract for 141 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed, which lowers the price for the most common version of the stealthy jet by 5.4 percent.

It was not immediately known how old the jet that crashed was.

Under the new contract signed on Friday, the next deliveries of F-35B jets will cost about $115 million each, military officials told Reuters.

The F-35B is the most expensive of three variants of the F-35, which also include the F-35A conventional take-off and landing version, and the F-35C, used aboard aircraft carriers.

Lockheed is the No. 1 U.S. defense contractor.</s>BEAUFORT, S.C. -- A military plane has crashed in coastal South Carolina, authorities said Friday. The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said the crash was reported about 11:45 a.m. near the Grays Hill community.

The plane that crashed was an F-35, making this the first crash of the U.S. military's newest and most expensive aircraft, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports. On Thursday, the Marines announced its first use in combat in Afghanistan.

The sheriff's office said in a tweet that the pilot ejected safely. It wasn't immediately clear if the pilot was injured.

The crash took place about 3 miles west of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. A woman answering the phone at the station could not confirm a crash and said officials aren't releasing any information at this time.

This is a developing story and will be updated.</s>The U.S. military suffered its first crash of an F-35 aircraft in the 17-year history of the high-profile fighter jet program on Friday.

The crash of the Marine Corps variant of the F-35, known as the F-35B Lightning II, occurred Friday at 11:45 a.m. outside Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina, according to the Marine Corps. The service did not give a suspected cause for the crash, saying the incident remained under investigation.

“The U.S. Marine pilot safely ejected from the single-seat aircraft and is currently being evaluated by medical personnel,” the Marines said in a statement. “There were no civilian injuries.”

The aircraft, which cost more than $100 million, belonged to Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, which trains Marine pilots for combat with the F-35.

In the past, F-35 jets have made emergency landings, experienced in-flight incidents, including oxygen deprivation among crews, and suffered from engine fires and other failures on the ground. But this is the first time the military has suffered a full-blown crash of an F-35 involving the ejection of a pilot.

A U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was underway, said the Marine Corps initially classified the crash as a Class A mishap, which is defined as an incident resulting in the complete destruction of the plane, more than $2 million in damage or the fatality or permanent total disability of the crew.

The Marines said they were working with authorities in South Carolina to secure the crash site around the F-35 and guarantee the safety of all personnel in the surrounding area.

A civic leader and former airline executive was alone when he was fatally shot in downtown Memphis, and authorities are investigating whether he was killed in a robbery or as part of a “personal vendetta,” police said Friday.

Later in the day, police took into custody two people who were in a truck matching the description of a vehicle connected to the shooting, but they have not been charged with the killing.

Philip Trenary, the president and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce, was shot at about 8 p.m. Thursday on South Front Street, Memphis police spokeswoman Karen Rudolph said. Trenary was shot near where the chamber was holding its annual “Move it Memphis” race, near a large apartment complex and not far from historic Beale Street.

Police appealed for help locating a suspect described as a black male with dreadlocks, wearing a blue shirt and driving a white four-door Ford F150.

Trenary, 64, founded Exec Express Airlines in Stillwater, Okla., in 1984. The company moved to Texas and was renamed Lone Star Airlines in 1987. Trenary came to Memphis in 1997 to run a regional airline that morphed into Pinnacle. He left Pinnacle in 2011.

Seven kangaroos have been removed temporarily by Florida wildlife officials from a home-based sanctuary where a 5-year-old kangaroo escaped earlier this week.

State wildlife officials said Friday that they had found “deficiencies” in the kangaroos’ enclosures at a home in Jupiter, Fla., and moved them to an undisclosed, licensed facility.

The Palm Beach Post reported that the sanctuary was last inspected in 2016 and was up to code. A spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said owner Eric Westergard is working to fix the fencing and caging issues.

The missing kangaroo named Storm was found Thursday, three days after he hopped away from Westergard’s home. Officers used drones and a K-9 in an effort to track down Storm.</s>A US Marine Corps F-35B crashed Friday in Beaufort County, South Carolina, near Marine Corp Air Station Beaufort, a US military official told CNN.

The pilot ejected safely and is being evaluated for injury, according to the official.

While the jet has experienced mishaps in the past, a US defense official told CNN that this is the first time an F-35 has crashed.

The Marines confirmed the incident later on Friday in a statement, saying the “pilot safely ejected from the single-seat aircraft and is currently being evaluated by medical personnel. There were no civilian injuries,”

The statement said that the jet belonged to Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.

“The cause of the crash is under investigation,” it added.

The F-35B joint strike fighter conducted its first-ever airstrike on Thursday.

The F-35 stealth jet has been called the most expensive weapons system in history, and its development was beset by multiple delays before it was deemed combat ready.

Earlier on Friday the Pentagon announced a new contract for the next batch of F-35 aircraft, saying that the plane’s contractor, Lockheed Martin had agreed to a reduced price.

The announced per-unit price tag for the Marine Corps F-35B was $115.5 million.

The F-35B is the only version of the aircraft that is able to land vertically like a helicopter. It can also take off in a much shorter space than other fighter jets.

The new contract means the price for the Air Force’s variant of the jet, the F-35A, fell below $90 million for the first time.</s>A US F-35 pilot was forced to eject midair after the $100million fighter jet crashed in South Carolina.

The aircraft was completely destroyed in the crash during a training exercise Friday, officials said.

The crash appears to be the first of its kind for the troubled F-35 program, marking an unfortunate moment for the most expensive plane in history.

Speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement, a defense official told AFP that the Marine Corps F-35 had crashed outside Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina.

'It's a total loss,' the official said.

The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said the crash was reported about 11:45 a.m. Friday near the Grays Hill community.

The pilot is being checked for injuries. No one on the ground was hurt.

A military official says the plane is a Marine F-35B fighter jet, capable of short takeoffs and vertical landings, on a routine training mission.

The crash comes just one day after the US military first used the F-35, which has been beset with delays and cost overruns, in combat. Multiple Marine Corps F-35s struck Taliban targets in Afghanistan.

Launched in the early 1990s, the F-35 program is considered the most expensive weapons system in US history, with an estimated cost of some $400 billion and a goal to produce 2,500 aircraft in the coming years.

The F-35 was billed as a fighter jet that could do almost everything the U.S. military desired, serving the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy – and even Britain's Royal Air Force and Royal Navy – all in one aircraft design.

It was supposed to replace and improve upon and aging aircraft types with widely different missions, and marketed as a cost-effective, powerful multi-role fighter airplane significantly better than anything potential adversaries could build in the next two decades.

But it turned out to be none of those things.

The program fell nearly a decade behind schedule, and failed to meet many of its original design requirements.

The unit cost per airplane, above $100 million, is roughly twice what was promised early on.

Even after President Trump lambasted the cost of the program in February 2017, the price per plane dropped just $7 million – less than 7 percent.

In 2013, a study by the RAND Corporation found that it would have been cheaper if the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy had simply designed and developed separate and more specialized aircraft to meet their specific operational requirements.

In January 2015, mock combat testing pitted the F-35 against an F-16, one of the fighters it is slated to replace.

The F-35A was flown 'clean' with empty weapon bays and without any drag-inducing and heavy externally mounted weapons or fuel tanks.

The F-16D, a heavier and somewhat less capable training version of the mainstay F-16C, was further encumbered with two 370-gallon external wing-mounted fuel tanks.

In spite of its significant advantages, the F-35A's test pilot noted that the F-35A was less maneuverable and markedly inferior to the F-16D in a visual-range dogfight.

One key reason the F-35 doesn't possess the world-beating air-to-air prowess promised, is that it was designed first and foremost to be a stealthy airplane.

This requirement has taken precedence over maneuverability, and likely above its overall air-to-air lethality.

The Pentagon and especially the Air Force seem to be relying almost exclusively on the F-35's stealth capabilities to succeed at its missions.

Like the F-117 and F-22, the F-35's stealth capability greatly reduces, but does not eliminate, its radar cross-section, the signal that radar receivers see bouncing back off an airplane.

The plane looks smaller on radar – perhaps like a bird rather than a plane – but is not invisible.

The F-35 is designed to be stealthy primarily in the X-band, the radar frequency range most commonly used for targeting in air-to-air combat.

In other radar frequencies, the F-35 is not so stealthy, making it vulnerable to being tracked and shot down.

One can also use an aircraft's infrared emissions, which are created by friction-generated heat as it flies through the air, along with its hot engines.

Several nations, particularly the Russians, have excellent passive infrared search and tracking systems, that can locate and target enemy aircraft with great precision – sometimes using lasers to measure exact distances, but without needing radar.

It's also very common in air-to-air battles for opposing planes to come close enough that their pilots can see each other.

The F-35 is as visible as any other aircraft its size.

Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon say the F-35's superiority over its rivals lies in its ability to remain undetected, giving it 'first look, first shot, first kill.'

Hugh Harkins, a highly respected author on military combat aircraft, called that claim 'a marketing and publicity gimmick' in his book on Russia's Sukhoi Su-35S, a potential opponent of the F-35.

He also wrote, 'In real terms an aircraft in the class of the F-35 cannot compete with the Su-35S for out and out performance such as speed, climb, altitude, and maneuverability.'

Other critics have been even harsher.

Pierre Sprey, a cofounding member of the so-called 'fighter mafia' at the Pentagon and a co-designer of the F-16, calls the F-35 an 'inherently a terrible airplane' that is the product of 'an exceptionally dumb piece of Air Force PR spin.'</s>BEAUFORT, S.C. — A military jet crashed in coastal South Carolina Friday, but the pilot was able to eject safely from the aircraft.

The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said the crash was reported about 11:45 a.m. Friday near the Grays Hill community and the pilot is being checked for injuries. No one on the ground was hurt.

The plane was a Marine F-35B fighter jet on a routine training mission, a spokesperson for the Marine Expeditionary Force said in a statement.

The Marine version of the jet is capable of short takeoffs and vertical landings. One flew its first combat mission Thursday in Afghanistan. The jet costs about $100 million.

The crash happened about 4 miles west of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>BEAUFORT, S.C. (AP) - Authorities say a military jet has crashed but the pilot was able to eject from the aircraft in coastal South Carolina.

The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said the crash was reported about 11:45 a.m. Friday near the Grays Hill community and the pilot is being checked for injuries. No one on the ground was hurt.

A military official says the plane is a Marine F-35B fighter jet on a routine training mission. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information before it is made public.

The Marine version of the jet is capable of short takeoffs and vertical landings. One flew its first combat mission Thursday in Afghanistan. The jet costs about $100 million.

The crash happened about 4 miles (6 kilometers) west of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.

Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.</s>An F-35 fighter jet crashed in South Carolina, the US Marine Corps said, in the first such incident to affect the most expensive defence programme in the world.

A statement said the crash occurred in the vicinity of Beaufort, South Carolina, at approximately 11.40am on Friday.

“The US Marine pilot ejected safely,” the statement said, adding that there were no civilian injuries and both the health of the pilot and the cause of the crash were being evaluated.

The F-35 Lightning II is built by Lockheed-Martin. Reuters reported earlier on Friday that the Pentagon announced an $11.5bn contract for 141 planes, which “lowered the price for the most common version of the stealthy jet by 5.4% to $89.2m”.

Donald Trump has trumpeted efforts to cut costs. On Friday V Adm Mat Winter, head of the Pentagon’s F-35 office, said: “Driving down cost is critical to the success of this programme.”

Most of the new planes will be for US use but some will go to allies. Israel and Britain are among countries committed to buying F-35s. On Thursday, F-35s landed on a British aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, for the first time.

On the same day, the US military said it carried out its first operation with the plane in Afghanistan. Israel has used its F-35s to carry out strikes.

The planes are equipped with stealth technology to help evade detection by radar. Trump has attracted criticism and ridicule for seeming to believe this makes the jets “invisible”.

Last November, for example, the president told an audience of coast guard officers the US was “ordering hundreds of millions of dollars of new airplanes for the air force, especially the F-35”.

“You like the F-35?” he asked. “… You can’t see it. You literally can’t see it. It’s hard to fight a plane you can’t see.”

Trump said he had discussed the plane with “some air force guys” who told him: “Well, it wins every time because the enemy cannot see it, even if it’s right next to it, it can’t see it.”

The F-35 is not invisible.
A USMC F-35 jet crashes in coastal South Carolina making this the first crash of the U.S. military's newest and most expensively developed aircraft.