ONE person was killed and two more were wounded when a fighter jet crashed in central China today, reported state media.

The Air Force J-7 “had an accident during training and fell in the vicinity of an airport… causing damage to private homes”, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

The pilot parachuted to safety and was transferred to hospital along with the other injured.

The cause of the crash in Xiangyang, a city in Hubei, is under investigation.

Footage of the crash site posted online by Xinhua news agency showed flames sending black smoke billowing into the air from a street in Xiangyang.

Several buildings appeared to have been completely flattened in the accident.

Two pilots died when a navy plane crashed in the island province of Hainan in 2019.

A civil aircraft crashed in the southern province of Guangxi in March, killing 132 people in the worst air disaster in China in decades.

The China Eastern flight MU5375 was travelling from Kunming to Guangzhou when it inexplicably plummeted into a mountainside from an altitude of 29,000 feet.

China’s civil aviation authority did not immediately find any reason for the incident, and said an investigation is ongoing.

The Wall Street Journal last month reported that United States investigators believed someone on board crashed the American-made Boeing 737-800 deliberately, citing a person familiar with a preliminary assessment of the incident. – AFP, June 9, 2022.