A U.S. Navy F-35C fighter has crashed at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California, with the pilot having ejected safely. The incident occurred within the late hours of July 30, with the Air Station reporting:
“NAS Lemoore can verify an aviation incident on the Operations facet of the set up. At 18:30, an F-35C connected to the VFA-125 [Strike Fighter Squadron 125] “Tough Raiders” went down not removed from NAS Lemoore. NAS Lemoore can verify the pilot efficiently ejected and is protected. There aren’t any extra affected personnel. The reason for the incident is beneath investigation.”
Though the F-35’s security report has been spectacular in comparison with previous fourth era fighters it was developed to switch, the few crashes which have taken place have gained important media consideration, largely attributable to each this system’s excessive profile and to the weird causes for a number of the incidents.
The F-35 has at instances suffered from crashes attributable to glitches with its unprecedentedly complicated software program, with a notable instance being the crash of a U.S. Air Power F-35A at Hill Air Power Base in Utah on October 19, 2022. This was revealed by an Air Power investigation to have crashed attributable to a software program situation, because the plane stopped responding to the pilot’s makes an attempt at guide management, and as an alternative sharply banking to the left and ignored his efforts to abort the touchdown sequence. An F-35 take a look at pilot who witnessed the incident from the bottom instructed investigators that the plane “appeared like a completely regular F-35 earlier than clearly going uncontrolled…. I did see actually giant flight management floor actions — [stabilisers], trailing edge flaps, rudders all appear to be shifting fairly quickly.” Alongside software program points, manufacturing defects comparable to high quality management points with gas tubes have triggered accidents prior to now. The excessive ranges of automation on the plane have made crashes attributable to pilot error exceptionally uncommon.
The F-35C has been produced in a lot smaller numbers than the F-35A developed for the Air Power and the F-35B constructed for the Marine Corps, and is the most important F-35 variant attributable to its a lot wider wings. This wingspan makes the plane heavier and reduces its thrust/weight ratio, but in addition permits it to place itself for landings on service decks extra simply, and to retailer considerably extra gas to match the vary of the bigger F-18E/F fighter it was developed to succeed. F-35C numbers crossed 100 fighters solely in late 2024, greater than six years after the category entered service, accounting for lower than 10 % of F-35s constructed. This small quantity is cut up between the Navy and the Marine Corps. The Navy was beforehand anticipated to obtain the F-35C in solely restricted numbers, whereas investing far more closely within the fourth era F-18E/F and in a sixth era fighter developed beneath the F/A-XX program. The current defunding of the F/A-XX, which means a subsequent era service based mostly fighters might solely turn out to be out there after 2040, is predicted to steer the Navy to attribute considerably better worth to the F-35 and to considerably enhance the variety of F-35Cs it plans to obtain.
