As we waited down a muddy track miles off the A1101 bordering the Cambridgeshire/Suffolk border, -it was confirmed that the pilot had died in the crash two hours earlier.

The plane, an F/A18 from VFMA 232 Red Devils based at Mirimar CF and belonging to the US Marine Corps, came down in a field on the site of P & G Sizer’s Temple Farm at Red Mere.

Flashing lights can be seen through the fog as ambulances both from the USAF and from the English forces, arrived.

The crash happened at around 10.30am but it was not until 12.30 that security chiefs ordered the whole area to be cordoned off.

Journalists and others have been kept around half a mile from the scene of the crash which happened on an isolated field a mile or so from the main road.

Visibility remains poor, with intermittent rain hampering preliminary investigations at the crash scene.

More police have begun to arrive and access has been restricted- fire crews, including those from Ely and Littleport, have begun to leave.

USAF security personnel are working with Cambridgeshire police and the Ministry of Defence.

Moments ago a bus load of military personnel from the USAF arrived on the scene together with an EOD truck, a bomb squad vehicle that contains highly sophisticated emergency equipment with robotic capabilities to examine crash scenes.