F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

Summary

Facebook Tweet Email Link A US Air Force F-35 pilot spent 50 minutes on an airborne conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to solve a problem with his fighter jet before he ejected and the plane plunged to the ground in Alaska earlier this year, an accident report released this week says. The January 28 crash at Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks was recorded in a video that showed the aircraft dropping straight down and exploding in a fireball. The pilot ejected safely, suffering only minor injuries, but the $200 million fighter jet was destroyed. An Air Force investigation blamed the crash on ice in the hydraulic lines in the nose and main landing gears of the F-35, which prevented them from deploying properly. According to the report, after takeoff the pilot tried to retract the landing gear, but it would not do so completely. When lowering it again, it would not center, locking on an angle to the left. Attempts to fix the landing gear caused the fighter jet to think it was on the ground, ultimately leading to the crash. After going through system checklists in an attempt to remedy the problem, the pilot got on a conference call with engineers from the plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, as the plane flew near the air base. Five engineers participated in the call, including a senior software engineer, a flight safety engineer and three specialists in landing gear systems, the report said. The pilot then tried two “touch and go” landings, where the plane briefly lands, to try to straighten out the jammed nose gear, the report said. But those attempts failed to recenter the nose wheel and resulted in both the left and right main landing gears freezing up and not being able to extend fully to attempt an actual landing. At that point, the F-35’s sensors indicated it was on the ground and the jet’s computer systems transitioned to “automated ground-operation mode,” the report said. This caused the fighter jet to become “uncontrollable” because it wa...