Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee/TNS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Tribune News Service) — A pilot from Beale Air Force Base was killed and a second was injured Tuesday after a U-2 spy plane, one of the most famous aircraft of the Cold War era, crashed Tuesday morning near the Sutter Buttes. BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on the crash of a U.S. Air Force U-2 spy plane in California (all times local):

A senior officer at Beale Air Force Base says military personnel recovering the two pilots who ejected from a stricken U-2 spy plane found that both their parachutes had deployed. Another pilot who survived sustained injuries that are not life-threatening and is now recovering in good condition at a local medical facility, base officials said. The aircraft, assigned to the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron, crashed in the Sutter Buttes, a mountain range about 60 miles (97 kilometers) north of Sacramento. Officers from Beale Air Force Base and from the Air Force Safety Center, which oversee all inspection and safety functions for the Air Force, will seek to identify “the root cause” of the crash, Keith Wright, a spokesman for the safety center, told The Sacramento Bee. “I am confident that the U-2 squadrons here and the U-2 squadrons around the world are going to come off the mat stronger than they were before.”

The U-2 “Dragon Lady” is a surveillance and reconnaissance plane capable of flying above 70,000 feet (21,336 meters), an extremely high altitude that’s twice as high as a typical commercial airliner flies. “I would match the safety and maintenance record of the U-2 with any of the apparatus the Air Force flies.”

The Beale air base, about 45 miles north of Sacramento, is home to America's fleet of high-altitude spy planes. The spy plane crashed into a parking lot outside the offices of the Oroville Mercury Register, killing the pilot and a woman on the ground.
A United States Air Force U-2 reconnaissance aircraft crashes in Northern California, shortly after takeoff from Beale Air Force Base, killing one pilot and injuring another.