BEIJING, Nov. 14 (UPI) — The first Chinese woman to fly a J-10 fighter jet was killed in a training accident, according to China’s state-run media.
Capt. Yu Xu, 30, died Saturday during a routine training flight with the country’s air force aerobatics team in Yutian county in Hebei province in northern China, Xinhua reported.
Yu had ejected after the J-10 she was flying collided with another J-10 and was killed when she was hit by the wing of another aircraft.
Her male co-pilot ejected safely and had only minor injuries.
Yu joined the military in 2005 and first flew the J-10 in July 2012. She was one of only four women to fly the J-10.
Fans nicknamed her Golden Peafowl because she excelled in the peafowl dance.
She had taken part in the Airshow China in Zhuhai earlier this month.
“I hope to give the audience a good performance,” China National Radio quoted her as saying before the show. “In terms of safety, in our training we’re always reminded to put safety first.”
“The morale of the aerobatics team will be hit. There has not been an incident like this for the team for a long time,” military observer Antony Wong Dong told the South China Morning Post. “If such accident happened in the air show in Zhuhai, it would be a disaster because more casualties would be likely.”
The most recent J-10 crash was on Sept. 28, when a plane crashed near Yangcun air base in Tianjin reportedly after hitting a bird.
