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Bodycam footage shows a Marine F-18 pilot bloodied from facial lacerations after a June crash in Washington state.
“I’m a little frazzled,” Marine Corps Maj. Jackson Simon admitted to a Yakima County Sheriff’s deputy wearing a bodycam after the June 13, 2026, crash. Despite that, Simon appeared unfazed by the wreck.
The newly released footage captured the moments after the Marine Corps pilot ejected from his F-18 Hornet before the fighter jet slammed into a mountainside near Rimrock Lake. The crash sent flames and a thick column of black smoke rising above the surrounding trees.
Despite blood covering parts of his face, Simon could be seen casually walking toward the deputy with a phone in his hand and appearing strikingly composed after coming down through the trees.
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Asked by a responder what kind of aircraft had crashed, the pilot began to answer, “That’s an F-18,” before quickly correcting himself.
“Well, that was–,” he began, before the responder said, “An F-18?” and the pilot confirmed.
The pilot told deputies he had been conducting low-level training over the lake when something went wrong.
“We were doing some circles over the lake,” he told the officer. “I tucked in, and I’m not sure exactly. Honestly, I’m a little frazzled.”
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When told by a bystander that “you hit the trees bad, bud,” he responded: “I went through the trees.”
When the bystander noticed the pilot was “shaking,” he admitted: “I have some adrenaline going.”
The footage also captured the pilot calmly making calls in the aftermath. In one conversation, he matter-of-factly tells someone, “Hey, buddy, this is Maj. Simon, I just crashed.”
After finishing his calls, he turned to the officer to say: “Without exaggeration: That’s about as close as you come.”
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Later footage showed his parachute on the mountainside and the officer helping him gather his gear and cut the parachute from the ropes tangled in the trees.
The responding deputy wrote in the incident report that he found Simon standing on a hillside, “taking off his flight harness” and stacking his gear in a pile. Simon then slid down the embankment to meet the deputy, who performed a “buddy check” for injuries.
Witnesses had watched the military aircraft circling near Rimrock Lake shortly before the crash. Several people called 911 after seeing the pilot eject and the jet plunge into the mountainside, where the impact ignited a fire in the wooded area.
The first report came at 12:18 p.m. local time, according to the incident report. Less than a minute later dispatch was logging “JET CRASH” and “PILOT PARACHUTED OUT.” Multiple callers reported the ejection and fire; one entry says a witness was “crying saying she saw the crash.”
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The Marine Corps said the F-18 was assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 11, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. It was conducting routine training about 55 miles southeast of Seattle when the “non-fatal aviation mishap” occurred at approximately noon Pacific time June 13. The pilot ejected and was recovered by the local sheriff’s department.
A military spokesperson valued the destroyed aircraft at close to $67 million. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
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The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, headquartered at MCAS Miramar in San Diego, California, has said it is withholding additional details while the investigation continues and noted that military aviation mishap investigations can take several months to complete.
