Two naval aviators ejected safely from a US Navy T-45C Goshawk training aircraft before it crashed on private farmland in Mississippi on May 26, 2026.
The aircraft was assigned to Training Air Wing One at Naval Air Station Meridian in Mississippi. The Navy said the crash happened at about 12:30 local time, and that both aviators were taken to a local medical center for evaluation.
Local media reported that the aircraft went down near Shuqualak, close to the Noxubee and Kemper County line. The crash site was on private land off US45, according to local reports.
The Navy has not identified the aviators and has not released details about the cause of the crash. The incident remains under investigation.
Training Air Wing One conducts advanced jet training for Navy, Marine Corps and allied student aviators. The T-45C Goshawk is the Navy’s carrier-capable jet trainer, used to prepare student aviators for tactical aircraft.
USNI News reported that some Training Air Wing One flight operations were paused after the crash, while other Navy training wings continued flying.
The crash came two weeks after a US Air Force T-38 Talon II from Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi crashed in western Alabama on May 12. Both pilots in that incident also ejected safely, and the Air Force later ordered a fleetwide operational pause for T-38 aircraft while investigators reviewed the mishap.
The Navy has experienced previous serious T-45 incidents. A T-45C assigned to Training Air Wing 2 crashed into a residential area in Lake Worth, Texas, in September 2021 after two aviators ejected. In 2017, two naval aviators died in a T-45C crash near Tellico Plains, Tennessee, during a training flight from NAS Meridian.
The T-45 Goshawk was developed by McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace as a carrier-capable version of the BAE Hawk trainer. The aircraft first flew in 1988 and entered Navy service in the early 1990s, with 221 delivered to the US Navy. Boeing later inherited the US side of the program after its merger with McDonnell Douglas.
The Navy has not said when paused Training Air Wing One flights will resume.
