January 2025: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before fighter jet crashed in Alaska | CNN
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/27/us/alaska-f-35-crash-accident-report-hnk-ml
Posted by EmergencyKrabbyPatty
January 2025: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before fighter jet crashed in Alaska | CNN
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/27/us/alaska-f-35-crash-accident-report-hnk-ml
Posted by EmergencyKrabbyPatty
4 Comments
How expensive is a 50-minute call to Lockheed-Martin from Switzerland?
Y’all do realize that this is how complicated military projects like fighter aircraft are developed? Problems occur, they are identified, they’re fixed. In this case, it was apparently something related to ice formation in the arctic region of Alaska.
Over 1,000 of these F-35 planes have already been built and delivered and have had over a million total flying hours. That’s why it’s more reliable than other types of jets, because there’s way more data and opportunities to iron out potentials kinks with more planes flying around.
“Hello IT support, have you tried turning it off and on again?”
Identified reason was that apparently ~30% of liquid in the hydraulic system was water, not oil which then froze. Sounds like pretty poor maintenance practices or a leak in the system.