Debris was found in a field outside of Charleston, South Carolina on Monday, September 18 and it was confirmed to be the remains of an F-35 that went missing on Sunday, September 17 after a “mishap” which caused the pilot to be ejected from the jet. 

On September 17, around 2 p.m. the Marine Corps pilot was ejected from the craft with a parachute and landed safely in a North Charleston neighborhood. The F-35B Lightning II was reported missing, and the search began around north of Joint Base Charleston South Carolina, around Lake Moultrie and Lake Marion.

A statement was put out seeking for the public’s help in search of the missing aircraft. There had been a couple, the Trulucks, who witnessed the jet crash. The Trulucks saw the jet flying low and just a little bit later heard the “boom” from a distance while the jet had gone missing again. 

Adrian Truluck said to NBC news, “and we were like that had to be the plane.” The Trulucks said they had called the military on Monday afternoon the day after what they had witnessed, but assumed they were already investigating the crash site. 

Before the crash, the jet had flown about 60 miles with a safety feature. With that help, it had saved the pilot’s life as well as the lives of other citizens, Marines have said. How this happened is still unknown and could take months for a definitive answer from an official review board.