On Thursday, a plane crashed while preparing for an air show at a military base in Virginia. The pilot on board the plane died in this accident.
In a press release, Army base officials said the plane crashed while landing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton.
The pilot of the plane has not yet been identified. The pilot was preparing for the Air Power Over Hampton Roads air show, which was scheduled to take place at the base this weekend. “Today we lost a friend of our Air Force family,” Col. Matthew Altman, commander of Joint Base Langley-Eustis, said in a statement. “On behalf of our entire JBLE team, I want to express our deepest condolences to the pilot’s family and friends.”
“The accident involving an MX Aircraft MXS is under investigation,” the National Transportation Safety Board said in a post on X. According to MX Aircraft’s website, the MXS is a single-seat aircraft. The base where the accident occurred is the Army’s Fort Eustis and Langley Air Force Base, located near the southwestern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The installation is home to a squadron of F-22 Raptor fighter jets. One of them shot down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic in 2023.