Retired paper mill worker, 72, hilariously imitates screeching sound of F-35 jet as it hurtled towards the ground after pilot ejected in rural South Carolina

A retired paper mill worker who heard the missing F-35 plane crash near his home imitated the sound made in a hilarious television appearance.

Randolph White, 72, described the sound as “between a scream and a whistle,” then broke into a screaming sound to help viewers understand.

He was shaving in his bathroom when the $100 million fighter jet crashed Sunday afternoon near his rural home in Williamsburg County.

The pilot was able to eject, but the exact whereabouts of the missing plane were unclear, sparking a frantic 28-hour search. It wasn’t until the next night, as helicopters flew overhead, that White learned the shrill noise was coming from a missing plane.

“I was in the bathroom, shaving, and I heard a scream. Between a scream and a whistle,” the retired paper mill worker told Fox 59. “I said, what is that? And I heard a boom! Then my whole house shook.

White didn’t notify authorities at the time because he had no idea what the noise was, he added.

“The first thought that came to me… I said: well, is a meteorite from space or something?

“And I said, well, if it was a plane, it needs to be reported because this thing was just flying too low.” I didn’t think of it any other way. I knew the level was low because my house is quite sturdy and it shook,” he told local media.

The next night, White noticed helicopters flying overhead as they searched for the missing plane, but he figured they must be looking for something else.

“Someone must have robbed a bank… Killed some people or something.” So I went there and they told me it was about the plane,” he said.

There remained more questions than answers Tuesday about how an F-35B Joint Strike Fighter ended up leaving a debris field described as “vast” by the local sheriff’s department.

Aerial footage showed debris in a thicket next to the field, where trees had been toppled. The field contained a large area of ​​scorched and blackened earth.

It is unclear whether residents informed the military of the accident, which does not appear to have occurred in a remote area.

Authorities closed about a mile of road indefinitely as they continued to search for wrecks in rural Williamsburg County. Residents were asked to avoid the area while a recovery team worked to make it safe.

The Marine pilot of the F-35B Lightning II took off Sunday from Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, but an unexplained problem forced him to eject.

The plane was flying in tandem with another jet, which returned to base after the crash rather than following the unmanned plane.

The pilot “experienced a malfunction and was forced to eject” Sunday at an altitude of about 1,000 feet, just a mile north of Charleston International Airport, according to a situation report provided to AP by the head of the Marine Corps.

“He doesn’t know where his plane crashed, he said he just lost it due to bad weather,” someone can be heard saying about the pilot during an audio call from medical services Charleston County emergency report shared Tuesday by a local meteorologist.

The pilot, who was not identified by the Marine Corps, was not seriously injured and has been released from the hospital.

The Pentagon faces pressing questions about how it lost an $80 million plane that was eventually found crashed in a field just 80 miles from its base after a frantic 28 hours of searching.

There remained more questions than answers Tuesday about how an F-35B Joint Strike Fighter ended up leaving a debris field described as “vast” by the local sheriff’s department.

Authorities closed about a mile of road indefinitely as they continued to search for wrecks in rural Williamsburg County. Residents were asked to avoid the area while a recovery team worked to make it safe.

Federal, state and local authorities worked Sunday to locate the plane, and the military appealed to the public for help in finding the plane, which is built to evade detection.

Jeremy Huggins, a spokesman for Joint Base Charleston, told NBC News that the plane was flying on autopilot mode when the pilot ejected from the plane.

Huggins told The Washington Post on Sunday that the warplane “has different coatings and different designs that make it harder to detect than a normal plane.” He added that the plane’s transponder was not working for an undetermined reason.

This forced the base to make a humiliating appeal for help in finding the plane – and even launch a hotline for advice, which was ruthlessly mocked online. “That’s why we put out a request for public assistance,” Huggins said.

Huggins would not answer further questions Monday, according to Joint Base Charleston, because the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing had taken over leadership of communications related to the accident. The 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing said an “investigation is ongoing” and would not share further details.

The jet is part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s most expensive weapons systems program, according to a May 2023 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The Department of Defense is evaluating its options for upgrading the engine, according to the report, and the “overloaded” cooling system requires the engine to operate “beyond its design parameters.”

Former Marine Dan Grazier, who works for a defense watchdog and has warned about F-35 security problems for years, said a software glitch or cyberattack could have caused the device to malfunction. the missing plane.

He told DailyMail.com: “There are thousands of penetration points, weaknesses throughout the business, where a hacker could access the software.”

The Marine Corps announced Monday that it was suspending flight operations for two days after the fighter jet crashed.