Dramatic moment pilot ejects from $100M F-35B jet before it crashes nose-down onto the tarmac
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Dramatic moment: Pilot ejects from $100 million F-35B stealth fighter jet as it crashes nose-down on runway near Fort Worth Naval Air Station in Texas
- An F-35B Lightning II fighter jet crashed during a vertical landing at the Joint Naval Air Station Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday.
- The pilot was forced to eject during the forced landing and it is unclear whether or not he was injured in the incident.
- The plane, which costs about $100 million to produce, can take off and land vertically, just like a helicopter.
- This was just the latest accident involving the plane, which has suffered numerous crashes and failures since its introduction in 2015.
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A pilot was forced to eject from an F-35B Lightning II fighter jet during a crash landing at a naval airbase in Texas on Thursday morning.
The accident occurred at the Joint Naval Air Station Reserve Base in Fort Worth, when the $100 million plane touched down on the runway. The status of the pilot is unknown.
It was not the first time that an F-35B, which takes off and lands vertically, like a helicopter, has crashed in recent memory.
Just this month, the nose landing gear of a plane collapsed while being towed across a runway in Japan, and last year a plane was thrown off the flight deck of an aircraft carrier and sank in the Mediterranean.
The accident occurred at the Joint Naval Air Station Reserve Base in Fort Worth, when the $100 million plane touched down on the runway.
The latest incident was not the first time that an F-35B, which takes off and lands vertically, like a helicopter, has crashed in recent memory.
Images from Fort Worth showed the F-35B descending vertically from the sky to the runway and landing softly.
The aircraft then appeared to bounce a few feet in the air and travel forward, before suddenly darting forward, nose first to the ground.
The plane flipped forward on its nose in a cloud of dust and smoke before turning 180 degrees. It then turned around and fell upright on its landing gear as it continued to slide forward.
The pilot then shot out of the cockpit with his parachute in tow, which expanded in the air before falling to the ground.
Images from Fort Worth showed the F-35B descending vertically from the sky to the runway and landing softly.
The aircraft appeared to bounce a few feet in the air and travel forward, before suddenly darting forward, nose first to the ground.
The plans slipped forward in a cloud of smoke and dust on the Fort Worth runway.
The pilot was ejected when the plane skidded down the runway in Texas
The plane’s producer, munitions contractor Lockheed Martin, acknowledged the accident in a statement.
“We are aware of the crash of the F-35B on the shared runway at the Joint Naval Air Station Reserve Base in Fort Worth and understand that the pilot ejected successfully,” the company said.
“Safety is our priority and we will follow the appropriate investigative protocol.”
Lockheed Martin assembles the plane at a facility that shares a runway with the Navy base.
Last February, the US Navy spokesperson confirmed that the photo above was a real image of an F-35B that crashed in the South China Sea.
The F-35C pilot deployed his landing hook to catch the deck and bring his plane to a stop, but something went wrong and he was thrown and skidded overboard.
The innovative aircraft was first introduced in 2015 and has been plagued with problems in recent years.
Just last summer, the Air Force grounded 300 of its F-35Bs, which had cost about $23 billion combined, due to faulty ejection systems.
At issue were explosive cartridges inside the F-35’s ejection seats that eject the pilot from the aircraft in an emergency.
‘Out of an abundance of caution, [Air Combat Command] ACC units will hold a stop on July 29 to speed up the inspection process,” an ACC spokesperson told DailyMail.com at the time.
And in February of this year, a Lightning II crash-landed on the USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea.
Video leaked to social media at the time showed the plane approaching the ship before a sudden puff of smoke filled the image accompanied by a violent engine noise before the video cut out.
Later photos showed the jet half submerged in water as it sank into the sea.
The pilot was thrown from the aircraft during the crash and was injured, as were six sailors aboard the Vinson.
The US Navy accident in Fort Worth was the TWELFTH time $100 million planes have failed in the last eight years
June 23, 2014: A USAF F-35A had a catastrophic engine fire caused by a fractured rotor that saw it turn into a fire while taking off in Florida.
October 27, 2016: A US Marine Corps F-35B caught fire mid-flight due to a fire in its weapons bay before the pilot landed safely in Beaufort, South Carolina.
September 28, 2018: All operational F-35s have been grounded as an investigation is launched into why a fuel tube failed in flight after a horrific crash at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina.
April 9, 2019: Parts of the tail of a Japanese F-35 were found in the sea about 85 miles east of Misawa during a training mission.
May 19, 2020: This F-35 crash on landing was caused by a tired and distracted pilot and an unresponsive tail failure.
September 20, 2020: An F-35 stealth fighter jet fell from the sky and exploded on the ground after colliding with a KC-130J tanker truck in a mid-air collision near the Salton Sea in Imperial County, California.
September 20, 2020 – An F-35 stealth fighter jet fell from the sky and exploded on the ground after colliding with a KC-130J tanker truck in a mid-air collision near the Salton Sea in Imperial County, California
November 17, 2021: An RAF F-35B crashed into the Mediterranean Sea after the pilot tried to abort takeoff from HMS Queen Elizabeth. Early reports suggested that its engine was sucking in an intake cover.
January 4, 2022: South Korea grounded its F-35s after an F-35A suffered a malfunction in the air. His pilot made an emergency belly landing when her landing gear failed to extend.
February 2, 2022: An F-35B crashes in the South China Sea while attempting to land on the USS Carl Vinson and the plane sinks to the bottom of the sea.
July, 2022: Three hundred US Air Force F-35bs, worth about $78 billion, to investigate potentially faulty ejection systems
December 1, 2022Above: The nose landing gear of an F-35B suddenly breaks off as the plane is taxiing down the runway at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.
December 15, 2022: A pilot was forced to eject when an F-35B suddenly pitched forward during a vertical landing at the Joint Naval Air Station Reserve Base in Fort Worth.