An McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet crashed shortly after taking off from a RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, England on Wednesday morning. An unidentified U.S. Navy pilot, only crew member, perished in the crash.

The jet and its pilot were returning from deployment in the Middle East and had stopped at a U.S. Air Force base in England. Reports suggest that the jet failed to rendezvous with a fuel tanker before taking off. Though the exact cause of the crash is unknown, witnesses say they saw an explosion in the sky and heard a loud noise before the aircraft plummeted to the earth.

The F/A-18 Hornet is a multirole combat jet that can reach a maximum speed of Mach 1.8. Though the jets have a storied history of participating in U.S. military operations such as Operation Iraqi Freedom, F-18 Hornets have also been at the center of many fatal crashes. The most famous accident was when a Blue Angels jet crashed at the end of an airshow in 2007, resulting in the tragic, televised death of the pilot.