US military locates debris of $80 million crashed F-35 stealth fighter jet

News, US September 20, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

U.S. military announced that the crash site of the missing F-35 warplanes has been located. The plane crashed two hours northeast of Joint Base Charleston in South Carolina. The fighter jet went missing on September 19, 2023, after its pilot ejected following a technical malfunction.

Wreckage of the $80 million F-35B Lightning II jet was found in rural Williamsburg County in South Carolina. The jet had been reported missing on Sunday after its pilot ejected from the cockpit. The planes and pilots were flying with the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing based in Beaufort, near the South Carolina coast.

Jeremy Huggins, a spokesman at Joint Base Charleston, said that the jet was in autopilot mode when the pilot ejected from the aircraft. Authorities believed that the jet remained airborne for some time and crashed only after it ran out of fuel, however, it was not the case as the wreckage site was found not too far from the site of ejection.

The pilot ejected the cockpit after reporting a technical malfunction and the aircraft continued flying in what some called a “zombie state.” The stealth abilities of the fighter jet appeared to be working too well, as it took authorities hours to locate a debris field. The pilot was taken to a hospital, where he was in stable condition, the Marines said.

Following the mishap that left the jet undetectable, authorities came forward to ask for the public’s help in locating the fighter jet’s crash site. The military’s request for public assistance ignited a wildfire of jokes and memes on the internet as several observers were surprised that such an advanced and expensive warplane remained undetectable for so long.

*^{U.S. fifth-generation fighter jets F-35 Lightning II. (Image Credit: 1st Lt. Zachary Bodner/Twitter/@thef35)}*

“The debris was discovered two hours northeast of JB Charleston,” Marine Corps’s Joint Base Charleston said on social media. The social media post also thanked the residents, county, and state officials for their help in the hunt for the missing stealth fighter plane.

Class-A mishap

The U.S. Air Force has classified the recent crash as a Class-A mishap. An incident that involves more than $2.5 million in damages is classified as a Class-A mishap. It is the third such incident over the past six weeks.

Last month, three Marines were killed and 20 were severely injured after a U.S. Marine’s MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft crashed in Australia. The plane was carrying 23 Marine soldiers during a joint military exercise in Australia.

The U.S. Marine Corps has announced a two-day pause in aerial operations following the recent incident as the initial investigations are carried out about the failure that led to the crash. In 2018, the U.S. military temporarily grounded its entire fleet of F-35 jets after a similar crash in South Carolina.