A US Air Pressure F-35 pilot spent 50 minutes on an airborne convention name with Lockheed Martin engineers attempting to unravel an issue together with his fighter jet earlier than he ejected and the airplane plunged to the bottom in Alaska earlier this 12 months, an accident report launched this week says.
The January 28 crash at Eielson Air Pressure Base in Fairbanks was recorded in a video that confirmed the plane dropping straight down and exploding in a fireball. The pilot ejected safely, struggling solely minor accidents, however the $200 million fighter jet was destroyed.
An Air Pressure investigation blamed the crash on ice within the hydraulic traces within the nostril and foremost touchdown gears of the F-35, which prevented them from deploying correctly.
In keeping with the report, after takeoff the pilot tried to retract the touchdown gear, however it will not accomplish that utterly. When reducing it once more, it will not middle, locking on an angle to the left. Makes an attempt to repair the touchdown gear brought on the fighter jet to assume it was on the bottom, in the end resulting in the crash.
After going by way of system checklists in an try to treatment the issue, the pilot acquired on a convention name with engineers from the airplane’s producer, Lockheed Martin, because the airplane flew close to the air base. 5 engineers participated within the name, together with a senior software program engineer, a flight security engineer and three specialists in touchdown gear techniques, the report stated.
The pilot then tried two “contact and go” landings, the place the airplane briefly lands, to attempt to straighten out the jammed nostril gear, the report stated.
US Air Pressure F-35A Lightning II fighter jets are seen at Eielson Air Pressure Base, Alaska, in 2021. – Colleen Coulthard/U.S. Air Pressure
However these makes an attempt did not recenter the nostril wheel and resulted in each the left and proper foremost touchdown gears freezing up and never with the ability to lengthen absolutely to aim an precise touchdown.
At that time, the F-35’s sensors indicated it was on the bottom and the jet’s laptop techniques transitioned to “automated ground-operation mode,” the report stated.
This brought on the fighter jet to develop into “uncontrollable” as a result of it was “operat(ing) as if it was on the bottom when flying,” forcing the pilot to eject.
An inspection of the plane’s wreckage discovered that about one-third of the fluid within the hydraulic techniques in each the nostril and proper foremost touchdown gears was water, when there ought to have been none.
The investigation discovered the same hydraulic icing drawback in one other F-35 on the identical base throughout a flight 9 days after the crash, however that plane was in a position to land with out incident.
The report notes Lockheed Martin had issued steerage on the issue the F-35’s sensors had in excessive chilly climate in a upkeep publication in April 2024, about 9 months earlier than the crash. The issue might make it “troublesome for the pilot to take care of management of the plane,” the steerage stated.
The temperature on the time of the crash was -1 diploma Fahrenheit, the report stated.
It stated if the convention name members had referenced the 2024 upkeep publication, “they possible would have suggested a deliberate full cease touchdown or a managed ejection as a substitute of a second touch-and-go” that finally led to the circumstances that brought on the crash, the report stated.
CNN has reached out to Lockheed Martin for touch upon the Air Pressure report.
The Air Pressure’s Accident Investigation Board concluded that “crew decision-making together with these on the in-flight convention name,” lack of “oversight for the hazardous materials program,” which oversees storage and distribution of the hydraulic fluid, and never correctly following plane hydraulics servicing procedures, all contributed to the crash.
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