COLUMBIA, S.C. — A maritime investigation blamed the pilot of an advanced fighter jet for ejecting him from the plane when he didn’t have to, causing the F-35 to fly unmanned for 11 minutes. before it crashed in rural South Carolina last year.
Military officials were unable to find the plane or its wreckage more than 24 hours, A dire situation released in the investigative report Thursday was blamed on the $100 million plane’s stealth technology, as well as a transponder that didn’t work and the plane flying at low altitude with a system that automatically stabilizes flight without pilot control.
The aircraft suffered several system failures when the pilot attempted to land at Joint Base Charleston during heavy rain in September 2023 after a 50-minute training flight with another F-35.
Lightning had been reported nearby and the plane suffered an “electrical event” that caused interference with the radios, transponders and air navigation system. The pilot’s helmet display also flickered on and off three times. The exact nature of what happened was blacked out in the report released to the public.
The pilot then said he had no idea where he was in relation to the ground and wasn’t sure which instruments to trust, so he decided to eject.
But marine investigators determined there was no need to abandon the plane because the computer was still controlling the flight, as evidenced by the plane. stay in the air for more than 100 kilometers and 11 minutes without a pilot.
According to the report, the standby instruments were still providing accurate data and the backup radio was still at least partially functioning.
The report noted that investigators are unsure what data the pilot received or what he saw in his helmet just before and at the time he ejected because the crash recorder did not record that information.
The 47-year-old pilot survived the September 17, 2023 crash, parachuting into the backyard of a North Charleston home and asking the stunned homeowner to call 911.
He told the operator his back hurt, but otherwise he was fine. The pilot was not identified in the approximately 400 sometimes heavily redacted pages the Marine Corps released about the crash.
Parts of the report are also carefully worded. The investigators wrote that the aircraft was difficult to find and that “the loss of positive contact could also be partially attributed to the F-35B’s low-observability technology.”
The missing plane caused a media storm. Memes posted photos of F-35s on missing posters and milk cartons. The Marines carefully tried to explain how a $100 million plane with many classified parts could disappear.
The strangeness of the crash was captured in the highly jargonic military reports. A situation report from the afternoon after the crash lists dozens of priorities: “1.A.1 Locate missing F-35 aircraft.”
The plane crashed in rural Williamsburg County. It took 17 days to collect and examine the wreckage and clean up spilled fuel and other hazards from the forest at a cost of more than $2.1 million, the report said.