A fighter jet crashed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego Friday morning, sparking a small fire on the military base. The F-35B assigned to 3rd Marine Aircraft Group 11 went down around 10 a.m. in what Marine Corps spokesperson Capt. Steven Keenan called a “Class A mishap.” The pilot, the only person aboard, ejected from the plane and was transported to the hospital with undisclosed injuries that were not considered to be life-threatening, according to Marine Corps spokesperson Maj. Larry Boyd. Footage from SkyRanger 7 showed a plane in at least two pieces amid a football-field-sized patch of scorched earth, which fire crews doused in streams of water. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash, which was several feet away from an airport runway. Class A mishaps are the most severe of the four classes. It involves an incident with damage worth more than $2.5 million, and/or that resulted in debilitating injuries or death, according to military documents. In a post on social media, a person who described witnessing the accident while driving on nearby Interstate 15 wrote that the aircraft flew over the freeway with its cockpit open before going down in “a big fireball” as a parachute presumably carrying the ejected pilot floated down toward the ground. The F-35B is the Marines’ short-takeoff aircraft; it can take off and land vertically, which is particularly useful for use on aircraft carriers. It is primarily used for anti-air warfare, reconnaissance and offensive air support, according to the Marines. This is a developing story. Details may change as information is released. City News Service contributed to this report. ...read more read less