A brand-new F-35B crashed on takeoff from Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque on Wednesday.
Patrick White, who was driving in the area at the time of the crash, told AP that he saw the aircraft trailing low to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt and dust. He said it briefly disappeared from his line of sight, and then he saw “an enormous plume of black smoke.”
When he drove past the crash, he said he saw a piece of the fighter jet in the middle of the road.
Glad the pilot survived what must be a nightmare scenario, going down from a low altitude with a full load of fuel. They say there are things you can never have too much of, like altitude when you have a problem or fuel if you are in trouble – I suspect this is the exception to those rules.
Judging by the picture it made a mess of the plane, essentially becoming a $90,000,000 total.
You have to wonder what the delivery terms on the F-35 contract are – if it’s theirs only until it leaves their plant they may be in the clear, but if the terms are “delivered to Edwards” they maybe oughta call their insurance company – preferably one who’s “seen a lot of things”. Regardless of even a Texas-style “once it rolls over the curb that car is YOURS” clause, there’s probably a lot of very pointed questions being asked right now at Lockheed. For $90 mill one would expect the plane to log better than one hour in the air.
Sounds like contaminated fuel to me but what the hell do I know!
I know as part of the preflight inspection for AvGas you test the fuel and see if there is water visible. Do active duty pilots test their own fuel or does somebody check that for them. I’m not familiar with how it’s done in Jet-A-1 fuel. Maybe there using bio-fuel? Regardless of what type of fuel, no altitude is a disaster.
Wrong two stroke gas mix?
They grabbed last year’s can from the shed.
Yup. Old gas fouled the plug.
Damn ethanol….
Yeah, the carb on my CJ-3B despises that shit.
No doubt. I run ethanol free in my mowers and Tru Fuel in the handheld stuff.
Yeah the Tru Fuel is expensive but it beats the fuck out of pulling carbs apart every time you want to fire something up.
I broke out last years mower the other day and it wouldn’t fire so I
got out the starting fluid, drygas and
some octane booster. Ran pretty
good on last years gas but the blade
seems a bid dull. I usually get two
seasons out of a mower then shit
can it for a new one. At least the
stumps are smaller.
It’s an annual carb rebuild. The seals just don’t like ethanol.
Should’ve used STA-BIL.
Are we sure this isn’t another case of aircraft ejecting pilot without his consent? Like the Marine in South Carolina, but this time the airplane wasn’t ready to keep flying!
“The plane had refueled at Kirtland Air Force Base, just adjacent to the airport, before the crash”
Missing gas cap?
Missgenderd gas cap?
Used regular instead of premium.
Somebody put in JP8 by mistake?
What ever happened over the one that flew away after the pilot ejected in North Carolina?
Somebody gots some ‘splainin’ to do, Lucy.
It will be pinned directly on some A1C fuel jockey.
Unconfirmed reports say the pilot was overdue on his DEI training.
We have some extremely technologically advanced and very expensive aircraft these days, and it seems that every few weeks we’re hearing about an F-35, Osprey, or other “game-changing” aircraft becoming a total loss, sometimes with the unfortunate loss of life as well.
I’m sure there have been plenty of F-16, F-15, F-14, F/A-18, F-4, and other jets that were lost during their heyday. It seems though that the classic case of pilot error, or of a pilot simply pushing his plane beyond its limits, has been surpassed by faulty parts, poor maintenance/QC, or other issues that should have been caught before the plane ever took to flight.
At least the door hole plug didn’t fall out.
Given all the incidents, reported and not reported on bases the last three months and the NATO report about Russian sabotage and the open border, I’m going to go different way.
There have been More than four reports of shots fired at US military air bases in the United States resulting in a base lockdown in the last 4 months for an active shooter. There was the incident at Quantico, the deadly incident at Fort Bragg and others all involving people in the country illegally.
I’m not much for conspiracy theories, but it appears to me that this has been suppressed by the media and there’s a lot more going on that we’re not hearing about. The only sources even telling the stories are notably conservative. Giving our track record the last few years with these type things It follows a very distinctive pattern.
They’ve gotta have a backup plan in case Trump wins in Nov..
The three most worthless things in aviation are:
Runway behind you
Airspace above you
Fuel you left on the tanker
Wasn’t it a west coast Marine unit that raised a stink about all of the discrepancies they had found on newly manufactured/delivered F-35s several months back. Perhaps the quality issues have not been resolved? I’ll wait on the SIB/AIB before I try to analyze news reports
I think that generally the engineering behind the aircraft design is pretty sound. My son is an avionics engineer and he says everything is checked by other engineers multiple times to make sure they got it right. My guess is that the parts are not meeting the specified qc. My own experience with Chinese tools was a spring compression tool. It was made from lead. And crumpled on the first squeeze. My hope is that the Chinese parts are made with the same qc. For their own use. I think that some companies are sourcing parts from suppliers who are cheating on production and obtains parts from illegal sources. …Chinese made. And they are ending up in critical resources. Like Bolts not meeting specified ratings etc. and being used in aircraft.
Many years ago I purchased set of chi com flair nut wrenches that broke like glass.
Hanes mens briefs are made in Viet of the Nam and about
half an inch shorter than usa made.
Everyone taking their cut.
The leg holes are offset and one bigger than the other on the Hanes briefs.
More fuel from Baltimore?
I’m thankful that the pilot is ok.
Not happy with the failure to fly – almost like one of Lars’ ideas. But this time it didn’t kill someone.
It was the new Biden Green New Deal Solar Powered Experimental Model.
But what the hell do I know??
Still better than the guy who purchased the Tesla truck and got 35 minutes out of it.