Race to beat China to recover $100m US F-35 stealth fighter from South China Sea after crash landing
Race to beat China to recover $100m US F-35 stealth fighter from bottom of South China Sea after it crash landed on aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson: Fears secret technology from America’s most advanced jet could fall into enemy hands
The USS Carl Vinson on Monday suffered a ‘landing mishap’ with F-35C warplaneThe Navy said the stealth fighter ‘subsequently fell to the water’It is packed with the latest technology and advances in radar-deflecting designThe ship is currently in the South China Sea, taking part in exercisesThe pilot of the F-35 ejected safely and was rescued by helicopter Seven were injured: three required evacuation to a medical facility in Manila
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The U.S. faces a race to beat China in recovering an F-35 stealth fighter that plunged into the South China Sea on Monday after what the Navy termed a ‘landing mishap’ aboard the USS Carl Vinson.
The pilot was forced to eject and seven military personnel in total were injured.
The $100m warplane, customised for naval operations, plunged overboard, the US 7th Fleet said – making it the second time in three months that an F-35 has been lost overboard.
‘An F-35C Lightning II assigned to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, embarked aboard USS (CVN 70) had a landing mishap and impacted the flight deck and subsequently fell to the water during routine flight operations,’ it said in a statement to US Naval Institute News.
‘Impact to the flight deck was superficial and all equipment for flight operations is operational.’
It added that the aircraft carrier had been able to resume normal flight operations shortly after.
But it leaves the Navy with a complex salvage operation if it is avoid its most sophisticated warplane, crammed with futuristic technology, falling into Chinese hands.
The US Navy did not respond to follow-up questions about whether it had launched a salvage operation.
The USS Carl Vinson is seen with the USS Essex behind in a January 2022 picture
Sailors taxi an F-35C Lightning II, assigned to the ‘Argonauts’ of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 147, on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson on January 22
The F-35C is the only long-range stealth strike fighter designed to operate from aircraft carriers.
It carries an arrestor hook – to help it land on aircraft carriers – and the expanded wingspan needed to be launched by catapult.
As well as its radar-avoiding design, it is crammed with sensors that beam updates directly to the pilot’s helmet.
Last year, Britain appealed to the US for help in finding an F-35B Lightning II that toppled from HMS Queen Elizabeth into the Mediterranean during a failed takeoff.
London asked for help amid fears that Russia would try to salvage the jet and copy the technology.
It was retrieved last month during a secret operation.
The US Navy jet was part of a deployment designed to bolster American presence near Taiwan after China had buzzed the island’s airspace.
A Navy statement said the incident happened during ‘routine flight operations’ in the South China Sea.
‘The pilot safely ejected from the aircraft and was recovered via U.S. military helicopter,’ it said.
‘The pilot is in stable condition. There were seven total sailors injured.’
The statement said three of personnel required evacuation to a medical facility in Manila and four were treated by on-board the carrier and released.
It said all the personnel evacuated were assessed as being in stable condition.
The Navy said the cause of the ‘inflight mishap’ on the nuclear-powered carrier was under investigation.
‘The status of the aircraft is currently under investigation as are the factors involved in the mishap,’ Brenda Way, a spokesperson for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, told The War Zone.
The F-35 jet is made by Lockheed Martin, and the USS Carl Vinson in August deployed from its San Diego base for the first time with F-35C Lightning II fighter jets and Navy CMV-22B Osprey aboard.
The F-35C is the carrier version of the Joint Strike Fighter being built in three versions for the Air Force, Marines and Navy.
The Navy version can fly 1.6 times the speed of sound and has a combat radius of 1200 nautical miles.
‘Vinson is the first carrier to accommodate a mix of 4th- and 5th- generation strike fighters, providing unprecedented lethality and survivability and ensuring the Navy team can operate and win in contested battlespace now and well into the future,’ said Capt. Tommy Locke, commander of Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, in August.
An F-35C Lightning II test aircraft approaches for a landing aboard the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower of the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, in 2015
The aircraft carriers were in the Philippine Sea, which lays east (to the right) of Taiwan and west of the US territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands
Captain P. Scott Miller, commander of the USS Carl Vinson
The Pentagon said two U.S. Navy Carrier Strike Groups, led by the Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln, began operations in the South China Sea on Sunday.
The carriers entered the disputed sea for training as Taiwan reported a new Chinese air force incursion at the top of the waterway.
The Carl Vinson is supported by more than 5,000 crew members and carries 65 fixed and rotary-wing aircraft.
This is only the second major mishap involving an F-35 of any kind operating from an aircraft carrier, following the loss of the British F-35B Joint Strike Fighter in the Mediterranean last year.
Earlier this month, a South Korean pilot was forced to make an emergency ‘belly landing’ in an F-35A after suffering a malfunction in the air.
Landing gear on the jet failed to extend but instead of ejecting, the pilot decided to land the US-made craft at an airbase on its belly.
The equipment failed due to electronic issues, a South Korean Air Force spokesman said, forcing the pilot to take the unprecedented action.
A military official refused to confirm if the jet suffered any damage in the incident but the pilot walked away uninjured.
The ‘fifth generation’ fighter aircraft is the world’s most expensive weapons system. Costs finally stabilized at an eye-watering $406billion, but only after the intervention of President Donald Trump.
Manufacturer Lockheed-Martin agreed to cap costs after rump criticized the project and even tweeted support for a rival aircraft.
America enticed its NATO and other allies into sharing the cost of the aircraft by offering input into manufacture and 15 per cent of each one is comprised of parts from British companies while some of the jets will be made in Italy.
But developing and testing were bedevilled by technical issues.
In a mock air battle in 2015, the cutting edge plane was defeated by an older generation F-16, a plane designed in the 1970s.
In 2020 Pentagon tests found 276 different faults in jet’s combat system.
They included the 25mm cannon vibrating excessively and problems with the the aircraft’s ‘virtual reality’ helmet
Overheating, premature wear of components in the vertical tails and vulnerability to fire were also found to be issues.
The US Air Force temporarily grounded dozens its F-35 stealth fighters while it investigated an oxygen supply issue.
The Marine Corps, which operates the vertical take off and landing F-35B model, was forced to ground its planes after flaws were found in the computer system.
