Pilot ejects seconds before disaster as Spanish military plane ploughs into the ocean (VIDEOS)

Beachgoers could only look on in horror as they watched a Spanish military aircraft plummet from the sky with a foreboding whir before smashing into the sea. Thankfully, the plucky pilot managed to eject just in the nick of time.

The Spanish military’s C-101 plane was conducting routine training exercises near La Manga in Murcia when, at about 09:40am local time Monday, some unknown but catastrophic failure took place causing the plane to dive uncontrollably.

The pilot ejected before the aircraft smashed into the Mediterranean sea; search and rescue operations have since got under way.

The cause of the crash remains unclear but the C-101 aircraft was reportedly being flown by an instructor from the local air force academy at the time of the incident. C-101s, built by Construcciones Aeronáuticas (CASA), have been used as advanced training aircraft, prior to combat aircraft training, by the Spanish military since the 1970s.

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