The U-2 reconnaissance plane crashed into a hillside at around 3:00 p.m. local time (0600 GMT), a defense ministry official said.

Witnesses said three residents living near the crash site were slightly injured and had been transferred to a nearby hospital for treatment, the South Korean Yonhap News reported.

A nearby auto-repair shop was destroyed and several houses were caught fire after the plane crashed and exploded.

A spokesman for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said the American pilot "escaped" and was taken from the scene of the accident by the US military.

Yonhap News previously reported the pilot has been "dead," but it attested the above saying in later reports.

The pilot was reported to report malfunction of engine before the accident be fell, so the United States Forces Korea assumed the accident was aroused by the engine trouble.

The US plane was on the way back to the Osan air force base after carrying routine flight over the Korean Peninsula.

It was the third U-2 spy plane crashed in South Korea. The previous two went down respectively in 1984 and 1992.

About 37,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea as a symbol of US-South Korean military alliance.

(Xinhua News Agency January 27, 2003)