One pilot has been killed and another managed to parachute to safety after two unarmed German fighter jets collided over northeast Germany.
The pilot of a third plane who witnessed the accident said parachutes had been ejected from both aircraft.
One of the pilots was later rescued from the top of a tree but the other was found dead on the ground on Monday.
Defence Minister Ursula Von Der Leyen said the Eurofighters collided about 20 minutes after they took off.
Two Eurofighter military jets have crashed near the Laage military base in northeast Germany. Source: AAP
"This is a sad day for our air force," she told reporters near the crash site in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
"We lost a soldier in a flight accident. Our thoughts are with his family and his comrades."
An armed forces spokesman said it was too early to say anything about the circumstances of the crash, and recovery teams were searching for the black box flight recorders.
The battalion based at Laage air force base near Rostock, where the aircraft took off, trains all pilots flying Germany's 140 Eurofighters.
They were the first two of the jets that Germany has lost since it started flying them in 2004.
Ostseewelle radio, which first reported the crash, posted a video sent in by a listener which showed two plumes of smoke rising from separate crash sites some distance apart.
It described a field of debris around the area of the crash, which it said had ignited a small forest fire.
About 400 Eurofighters - made by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo - are in service around the world.
