SAN DIEGO (AP) _ A Navy pilot helped avert a disaster by staying in his burning jet until the last possible moment and bailing out an instant before it crashed in a parking lot between two occupied buildings, officials say.

There were no serious injuries in Monday’s fiery crash in the heart of Sorrento Valley, San Diego’s bustling high-tech district.

The pilot, Cmdr. David Strong, who was unharmed, freed himself from his ejection seat and went to the assistance of firefighters, helping them train hoses on the flaming wreckage of his aircraft.

″That pilot should get a medal for what he did,″ said Esther Foidl, a Kyocera International employee who was outside her building when the jet slammed into the pavement and exploded 100 yards away.

″The way he brought that plane down was something else,″ she said.

Investigators believe Strong stayed in the plane long enough to aim the disabled aircraft between the Kyocera building and a neighboring firm.

Flames and heat destroyed or damaged 24 vehicles in the lot and scorched the side of one building. Two people were treated for minor burns and later released, said Logan Bellows, a fire department spokesman.

Debris from the F-8 Crusader reconnaissance aircraft littered an area the size of a football field.

″Considering what could have happened, it’s a miracle no one was killed or injured,″ Bellows said, noting an estimated 200 people were in the immediate area.

Strong, a commander in the Naval Reserve at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C, had taken off from Miramar Naval Air Station here Monday morning, headed for an exercise over the Pacific Ocean.

Shortly after takeoff, he reported a fire aboard the Crusader jet, and tried to return to the base. He tried shutting off and restarting the engine to extinguish the flames, but the flames continued and the plane lost power, descending rapidly toward the lot, Navy officials said.

Strong waited until the plane - which was carrying 12,000 pounds of fuel - was an estimated 250 feet from impact before ejecting, said Navy Capt. G.E. Hakanson, commanding officer at Miramar.

″He really rode it down to the last instant,″ Hakanson said.

Strong, 36, said he was relieved that no one was killed or seriously injured.

″I’m happy about that,″ he said. ″But even if there had been loss of life, I knew I had done everything I could to prevent it.″

Navy officials said the investigation to determine the cause of the crash could take up to a month.