Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. F/A-18 fighter jet crashed in San Diego near the Marine base that featured in the movie “Top Gun,” killing at least three people and destroying two homes in a residential neighborhood.

The pilot ejected moments before the crash and was in a stable condition, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar said in a statement. Two adults and a child were killed and officials will resume searching the site for a missing child tomorrow, San Diego Fire Department spokesman Maurice Luque said in a telephone interview.

“It was like a big bomb went off” and jet fuel made the fire more intense, Luque said. Toxic smoke from the aircraft’s carbon fiber body billowed into the air and the street in the suburb of University City was littered with debris from the wrecked jet.

The pilot, who was working toward his qualifications for takeoff and landing from an aircraft carrier, was about two miles (3 kilometers) northwest of the airfield when the jet crashed shortly before noon local time today. He was flying to the station from the USS Abraham Lincoln, said Miramar spokeswoman Frances Goch, who declined to release his name.

University City is a middle-class neighborhood in northern San Diego west of Miramar, in the flight path of aircraft from the base. A few miles to the west is the community of La Jolla, with multimillion-dollar oceanfront homes.

Safety Concerns

The base, which featured in the 1986 movie starring Tom Cruise, has been a source of controversy for years as rapidly encroaching residential and commercial development sprang up during the boom years of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Some community groups have voiced safety concerns because of the daily jet and helicopter training missions.

The crash “felt like an earthquake,” said local resident Greg Wilson.

Michael Nugent, a 16-year-old high school student, was eating lunch when he hard a loud “pop,” looked up and saw the pilot eject, the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper reported on its Web site. A “giant mushroom cloud” formed after the plane hit the ground, he said.

Dennis Connor, 50, was on a hill in the neighborhood when he saw the plane coming in at a 45-degree angle, the newspaper reported. The pilot “was trying to get to the canyon,” the Union-Tribune cited Connor as saying. “He held on as long as he could. At the last second, the pilot parachuted out.”

Mechanical Problems

Steve Diamond, a retired Naval aviator, also witnessed the crash and found the pilot in a canyon near the local high school, the newspaper reported. The Marine Corps lieutenant in his 20s told Diamond the plane had mechanical problems, according to the report.

Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla treated one person for smoke inhalation and anxiety because her house was damaged, said Lisa Ohmstede, a spokeswoman for the hospital. Another patient was a firefighter with a minor cut, she said.

The plane that crashed was an F/A-18D Hornet, according to the Marine station statement. The attack and fighter aircraft is made by McDonnell Douglas Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., according to the Navy’s Web page on the plane.

There have been other military jet plane crashes this year. In March, an F-16 fighter leaving Luke Air Force Base in Arizona crashed near Alamo Lake, about 80 miles from Phoenix, during a training exercise, killing the pilot.

A month later, two Air Force pilots were killed during a training mission when their T-38C Talon jet crashed at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Flinn in San Francisco at rflinn@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 8, 2008 22:01 EST