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| Dramatic, US F-35B Stealth Fighter Jet Lands With Aircraft Nose |
International Military - A United States (US) military pilot dramatically ejected from an F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter during an emergency landing at a Navy base in Texas, Thursday. The sophisticated fighter jet had an accident, namely landing on the runway with the nose of the plane.
The $100 million fighter jet crash occurred at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth. This is not the first time the F-35B variant of the F-35 which takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter has been involved in an accident this month.
On December 1, the front landing gear of an American F-35B fighter jet was cut off while being towed across the runway at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. Last year, a similar fighter jet belonging to the British Royal Navy slid off the flight deck of an aircraft carrier and sank into the Mediterranean Sea.
Video footage of the crash in Fort Worth shows the F-35B descending vertically from the sky onto the runway and landing gently. However, the plane then bounced several feet into the air and moved forward, before suddenly being catapulted forward with its nose touching the runway. The aircraft then flipped forward in a cloud of dust and smoke before turning 180 degrees. It then held on to its landing gear as it continued to slide forward. It was then that the pilot ejected from the cockpit with his parachute, which inflated in the air before hovering towards the ground.
The manufacturer of the F-35 fighter jet, Lockheed Martin, acknowledged the crash in a statement. "We are aware of the F-35B crash on the common runway at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth and understand the pilot ejected successfully," the company said, as quoted Mail Online, Friday (6/2/2022).
"Safety is our priority, and we will follow the appropriate investigation protocol," the Lockheed Martin statement continued. Lockheed Martin assembles the F-35B fighter jets in a facility that shares runways with the Navy base. This innovative fighter jet was first introduced in 2015 and has been beset by problems in recent years.
This past summer the U.S. Air Force grounded 300 of its F-35Bs—which cost an estimated $23 billion collectively because of a faulty ejection system. At issue was the explosive shell in the F-35's ejection seat that ejected the pilot from the plane in an emergency. "Out of an abundance of caution, the ACC [Air Combat Command] unit will be on stand-down on July 29 to expedite the vetting process," an ACC spokesperson told Mail Online at the time.
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In February this year, an F-35B Lightning II fighter jet crashed while landing on the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. Video leaked on social media at the time shows fighter jets approaching the carrier before a sudden burst of smoke fills the frame accompanied by loud engine noises before the video cuts off. Later circulating photos showed the fighter jet half submerged in the water as it sank into the sea. The pilot had ejected from the plane during the crash and was reportedly injured, as were the six sailors who were aboard the USS Carl Vinson.