BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- Two German Air Force pilots have been killed in a mid-air collision between two fighter jets over northern Germany, according to a military spokesman.
The Tornados were flying over the state of Schleswig-Holstein on Wednesday when the crash took place at about 10:30 a.m. local time near Sankt Peter Ording, German Air Force spokesman Thomas Scheiber told CNN.
Two crew members parachuted to safety. There was no immediate word on damage on the ground.
The planes came down in a field near the city of Garding on the North Sea coast, scattering wreckage over a wide area. They were based at a nearby air base.
"Suddenly I heard a bang, and when I looked to the sky one of the planes was burning. It was like a fireball in the sky," Frauke Ladendorf, who was sitting on her terrace in Garding at the time of the crash, said.
Ladendorf told The Associated Press in a telephone interview she did not see exactly how the planes crashed.
"Everything looked so close," she said. "I panicked and was sure one of the planes would land in my garden."
The military said flight experts were examining the wreckage in a bid to determine the cause of the crash.
