A pair of air force pilots escaped injury after ejecting from their military plane moments before the jet came crashing down west of Cold Lake.
A witness on scene tells CTV News the plane went down and nearly hit a house. A large plume of black smoke could be seen in the area.
The aircraft, a CT-155 used to train fighter pilots, went down around noon Friday.
The pilots spoke to media late Friday saying everything was going well until they heard a loud bang.
"After we exhausted all possible remedies, we realized at that point that we would try for the field, try to glide in. It came apparent quite quickly that we weren't going to make it. But I don't believe in quitting ever, so we kept trying to a point we decided we had to get out of the aircraft. We discussed first and foremost, where we would put the airplane because where the aircraft was going to come to was essentially very important to us," said Lt. Col. Lee Vogan.
Hunter Mitchell was driving with his dad when he saw the plane come down. He says after the plane hit an area described as a swamp, it burst into flames.
"It looks like the plane had bounced in the field just south of it and skidded across the field through the trees and the farmer's fence and landed where it is now… just on fire," said Mitchell.
Another witness says she saw the two pilots safely eject from the jet before the crash.
"They ejected and the plane went down maybe 30 seconds later. The pilots went down just right off the highway, maybe about 20 feet off the edge of the highway...and they had fallen into a slew," said Jaclyn Guenette who happened to be passing by the scene as the crash occurred.
"They definitely didn't look like they had any physical injuries," said Guenette.
The crash happened during a training exercise about two kilometres from the end of the runway.
Officials are investigating what happened and what caused the plane to go down.
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With files from Sean Amato
