U.S. Navy Fighter Jet Accident in South China Sea Injures 7

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NY Times

By Isabella Kwai

An accident aboard an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea injured seven American sailors and led to the pilot ejecting from his F-35 fighter jet on Monday, the Navy said in a statement, calling it a “landing mishap.”

The combat aircraft, a F-35C Lightning II, had been conducting routine flight operations before getting into difficulties on the deck of the carrier Carl Vinson, the statement said.

The cause of the accident was unclear, but the Navy said it was being investigated. Though such incidents are unusual, it comes months after a nuclear-powered Navy submarine hit an underwater seamount in the South China Sea in October, causing injuries and leading to the removal of the vessel’s commanding officer.

In recent years, the United States has deployed more warships on routine patrols in the South China Sea, disputed waters to which Beijing is increasingly asserting claims.



A photo provided by the U.S. Navy of the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in 2018.Credit...Petty Officer 1st Class Arthurgwain Marquez/U.S. Navy, via Associated Press

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/world/asia/fighter-jet-accident-south-china-sea.html

[Ford_Prefect]

1. Carrier service has its own difficulties and this is not the first navy aircraft to suffer such.

Which is to say nothing about the dangers to crew and pilots.

That said the damage to our defense budget is at least $115,000,000, the cost of the lost F-35 IIC.

I note this because the F-35 series is so very expensive an aircraft, which has also a rather dubious and excruciatingly expensive service record thus far. I have no doubt it is capable of many things, however it may also bankrupt other services and US agencies to keep them airborne.

We would appear to be following in the footsteps of the Portuguese Colonial Empire in that we will have to spend fortunes we do not possess to maintain our military might in the defense of a dubiously held empire.

[paleotn]

3. F-35 A, B and C are works in progress....

Instead of doing all the development prior to deployment, delaying the roll out by a decade or more, it's deployed and finishing development all at the same time. Initially, it's going to kind of suck right out of the box. Initial units are also going to be expensive as hell, but taken together, 20+ years down the road, the average unit cost won't be nearly as much. It's current capabilities are as good or better than 4.5 Gen and it's promise is lightyears better. The F-35B. An STOVL with mach 1+ performance. That was science fiction not all that long ago.

General Dynamics did the same type of roll out with the F-16 with much the same sticker shock. That platform had so many mishaps in the 70's it was unaffectionately known as the "lawn dart." 40 years later they're still flying and have become the backbone of the USAF since the 80's.

Carrier accidents happen. The cost of train like you fight, fight like you train. The up side is, our guys have way more cockpit time than those of our strategic opponents.

[Ford_Prefect]

5. All true except that the F-35 is a grossly compromised design which an A4 could take down.

The critical point for the f-35 is not how it was rolled out but that the servicing costs to keep it on the flight line are enormous even by Pentagon standards and risks the mission preparedness of any unit using it. This has been widely witnessed and reported. There has been a dance of the 7 veils going on regarding the unit costs by re-calibrating them based on the delivered airframe minus certain "optional" features in a sad attempt to disguise the near term price. These features are said to be mission dependent and so represent a cost not borne for each aircraft. It may fool some journalists but there are members of Congress asking questions.

[Happy Hoosier]

7. I'm sorry... that's just uninformed.

As someone who works in Naval tactical aviation, that's just flat out wrong. Although the F-35 has its issues, it routinely excels in realistic air-to-air engagement scenarios, most often "killing" its opponents before they even know they are there.

And I assume the A-4 comment is facetious since the A-4 was designed as a ground attack aircraft and has extremely limited air-to-air capabilities.

I was recently involved in a project to update some A-4's for use as adversary trainers and I can tell you that in their unmodified form, they are NOT capable air-to-air platforms.

[Happy Hoosier]

8. Do we know this was due to a failure of the aircraft?

Landing a fighter on a carrier is always a challenge, and we've many jets over the years due to pilot error. From my experience with e F-35, it's easier to land than most, but it doesn't have the strongest power curve in the world, and any pilot that gets low and slow in-close is in trouble.

It could, of course, be a technical failure, the likely culprit is pilot error. Given that the mishap occurred after touchdown, it sounds like a deck alignment failure, though it could be a hook-tip failure, which would be be a specific issue for the F-35. I was on the USS George Washington LSO platform when the hook tip of an F-18 broke and the jet ALMOST crashed.

[rockfordfile]

2. Those injured make a good recovery

[paleotn]

4. +10,000

[hunter]

6. US Navy tries to salvage fighter jet that fell into South China Sea

The F-35C warplane crashed during a landing mishap on the deck of USS Carl Vinson. Officials refused to speculate on fears the aircraft could fall into China's hands.

--more--

https://www.dw.com/en/us-navy-tries-to-salvage-fighter-jet-that-fell-into-south-china-sea/a-60554096

What might the Chinese learn from this fighter? That aircraft design directed by politicians is a bad idea?