Two US airmen were forced to eject from their F-15E fighter jet over Libya on Monday night after an apparent mechanical failure, the US military said.

The wreckage of their F-15E Strike Eagle jet, which crashed at 9.30pm GMT, was found near Benghazi.

Vince Crawley, a spokesman for the Africa Command, said both crew members had been safely recovered and had received only minor injuries. Crawley said the crash was likely to have been caused by mechanical failure rather than hostile fire. He declined to give the location of the crash and would not say how the rescued crewmen were picked up or where they were taken.

The aircraft, based at RAF Lakenheath, was flying out of Italy's Aviano airbase in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn at the time of the incident. The cause of the crash is being investigated.

Photographs on the Daily Telegraph's website showed local Libyans inspecting the charred wreckage of the plane. "Just found a crashed US warplane in a field. Believe a mechanical failure brought it down," the paper's correspondent Rob Crilly said on Twitter. "Came down late last night. Crew believed safe," he added later.

The US air force has said only that B-2, F-15 and F-16 fighters are participating in operations over Libya. The US's involvement in Libya is being run by Africa Command, which is based in Stuttgart, Germany.