Air Force plane crashes near Utah-Arizona line

The pilot was airlifted from the crash scene

LITTLEFIELD, Arizona (CNN) -- A plane from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada crashed Monday in the Virgin River Gorge near the Arizona-Utah state line.

Base spokesman Mike Estrada told CNN the pilot of the A-10 Thunderbolt II, a single-seat ground attack jet, survived and was being taken to a hospital in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Estrada said the jet took off from Nellis but was not based there. The base is just northeast of Las Vegas.

Sherrie Rhoades, a spokeswoman for the Beaver Dam-Littlefield Fire Department, said some evidence of the crash was visible from a distance.

"We could just see smoke coming from the top of the mountain," she said.

The crash was reported at 12:39 p.m. in Mojave County, six miles from Beaver Dam. The plane went down in an area less than a mile from Interstate 15.

The Virgin River runs from central Utah to Lake Mead in southern Nevada. On its course, it cuts through the Beaver Dam Mountain range. The gorge separates the Utah desert from the one-time marsh area in southeast Nevada now known as the Virgin Valley.