US Air Force F-35 pilot talked to Lockheed technical support in vain for almost an hour — plane crashes

Probably everyone in their lives has had cases of fruitless communication with technical support. In the case of the F-35, it resulted in the loss of a $200 million fighter jet.

According to CNN, on January 28 this year F-35 pilot during a training flight at Eielson Air Force Base, encountered a malfunction that eventually led to the crash of the aircraft. The pilot ejected in time and suffered only minor injuries.

The pilot tried to retract the landing gear after takeoff, but it would not go in completely. Then he tried to lower the landing gear, after which it got stuck at an angle. After checking the system checklist, which didn’t help, the pilot decided he needed expert help and started a conference call with five Lockheed Martin engineers. He spoke for 50 minutes with senior programmer of the F-35, a flight safety engineer, and three landing gear specialists, but as you can see in the video, they were of no help.

The plane made two extreme landing attempts, during which it landed briefly to fix a jammed nose gear. But these attempts made the situation even worse. Not only was the nose wheel still off-center, but now the left and right landing gear were frozen and unable to fully extend. Because of this, the plane’s sensors thought it was on the ground and made the plane uncontrollable. The pilot then decided to eject.

An investigation revealed that the problem was caused by ice in the hydraulic tubes of the F-35’s nose and main landing gear struts, which prevented them from deploying properly. Apparently, the hydraulic system was mistakenly partially filled with water — it accounted for about a third of the fluid in the hydraulic systems. It was not supposed to be there because of the extremely low temperatures that airplanes are exposed to at altitude. CNN notes that on the day of the crash, the temperature was -18 °C.

The Air Force Accident Investigation Board cites a conference call, lack of supervision over the storage and distribution of hydraulic fluid, and inadequate maintenance procedures for the aircraft’s hydraulics as the causes of the accident. The report says that if the engineers had followed the guidelines outlined in the 2024 maintenance update, they would have likely advised a planned landing with a full stop or a controlled ejection instead of a second touchdown and launch during the conference call.

Nine days later, another F-35 taking off from the same base also experienced a hydraulic problem caused by icing. The pilot managed to land the aircraft safely.

Source: TechSpot