DoD is investigating the cause of a Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35B crash on May 28, just after the plane took off from Albuquerque International Sunport, N.M.
The Defense Contract Management Agency pilot ejected safely and received medical attention in Albuquerque, the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) said. Local news in Albuquerque reported that the pilot had sustained serious injuries.
Another takeoff crash of an F-35B on Dec. 15, 2022 at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas, halted deliveries for three months, as DoD and Lockheed Martin investigated the cause, which the F-35 program attributed to “harmonic resonance” of the RTX [RTX] Pratt & Whitney F135 engine (Defense Daily, March 2, 2023).
The F-35 JPO said that it had then ordered retrofits for a small number of relatively new F135s that needed the fix to correct the higher than normal engine vibration.
The aircraft involved in the May 28 Class A mishap “was a developmental test aircraft being transferred from Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas to Edwards AFB, Calif.,” the F-35 program said. “The government accepted (DD-250) the aircraft in September 2023, and it was recently undergoing modification to add additional test equipment.”
Class A mishaps are those that involve a loss of life or permanent disability and/or loss of the aircraft and/or $2.5 million or more in aircraft damage.
F-35 backers say that the plane’s avionics/ease of flight make it significantly safer to fly than fourth generation fighters.
A December 2020 report by the National Commission on Military Aviation Safety suggested the toll that the F-35 had exacted on maintenance personnel. “According to feedback from line units, the F-35 program is perhaps the best example of DoD’s pursuit of new technology via an erroneous acquisition and planning construct,” the study said. “As an F-35 maintenance squadron commander told the commission, ‘The bean counters got it wrong. They said the F-35 is going to be easier to maintain, they will need less maintenance. These aircraft take a lot more man hours than previously thought, but they’ve already appropriated smaller staffing.'”
DoD has taken delivery of about 1,000 F-35s, including F-35As for the U.S. Air Force, F-35B U.S. Marine Corps short takeoff and vertical landing variants, and F-35Cs for the U.S. Navy.
On March 12, the Pentagon said that the F-35 went into full-rate production–nearly nine years after the fighter entered service in 2015 (Defense Daily, March 12).
The first F-35A rolled out of Lockheed Martin’s Ft. Worth plant on Feb. 19, 2006.