Two Pilots Barely Escape After a Fighter Jet Goes Down in Flames at Michigan Air Show

A terrifying moment at a Michigan air show was caught on video, when a fighter jet went down in flames during a demonstration and the two pilots barely escaped with their lives.

The popular Thunder Over Michigan air show was celebrating its 25th anniversary this weekend when the incident occurred on Sunday. The two pilots were flying a MiG-23 Russian fighter jet near the Willow Run Airport in the Detroit suburb of Ypsilanti, when all of a sudden the craft began to emit smoke and start nosediving.

In the video, the occupants can be seen ejecting from the jet with parachutes just moments before it crashed into the parking lot of a nearby apartment building, striking unoccupied vehicles. Both the pilot and backseat pilot landed in Belleville Lake and were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

Shortly after the crash, Thunder Over Michigan notified attendees via the event's Facebook page that there was a "situation that requires us to stop the show," asking people to make their way to their vehicles and calmly exit the airfield.

The Wayne County Airport Authority likewise released a statement detailing what had transpired.

"Shortly after 4:00 p.m. Sunday, a MiG-23 demonstration plane performing at the Yankee Air Museum’s Thunder over Michigan air show crashed into the parking lot at the Waverly on the Lake Apartments in Belleville," the statement read. "The pilot and backseater successfully ejected from the aircraft before the crash. While it did not appear they sustained any significant injuries, first responders transported the pair to a nearby hospital as a precaution."

"The aircraft struck unoccupied vehicles in the apartment complex’s parking lot," the statement continued. "No one at the apartment complex nor the air show was injured. The FAA is investigating the crash."

It's a small miracle that no injuries were reported. The same could not be said for the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin last month, in which four people were killed in two separate incidents. One of the deceased was Devyn Reiley, the 30-year-old daughter of two-time Super Bowl-winning offensive lineman Bruce Collie.

Reiley and her co-pilot crashed into Lake Winnebago after losing control of the vintage World War II-era aircraft they were piloting. The second incident involved a gyrocopter and helicopter, both owned by event attendees, that collided in mid-air.