You're reading: Chinese military jet crashes into house; 4 injured

BEIJING — A military jet on a routine training flight crashed into a house in southern China on Tuesday, setting the building on fire and injuring several people inside, state media reported.

China
Central Television said the pilot ejected and parachuted to safety
before the crash in Shantou city in Guangdong province. It said one of
the four people inside the house managed to escape. The three others
were hospitalized and one, a 26-year-old woman, was in critical
condition, it said.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported that four civilians were injured and received treatment at a hospital.

Citing the Ministry of Defense, it said the J-7 fighter jet had a mechanical failure just after takeoff from a Shantou airport.

The mostly retired fighter jets are a 1960s-era Chinese copy of the Soviet MiG-21.

The
Shantou city government’s emergency office referred calls to its
propaganda office, where calls rang unanswered. Calls to the Defense
Ministry’s news office also rang unanswered.