- The crash of a F-35 fighter jet this week has put the highlight back on the plane.
- The F-35, despite the controversy this crash has spawned, actually has considered one of the safest records in fighter jet history.
- Only thirteen aircraft have been lost, despite logging a complete of nearly 800,000 flight hours worldwide.
A F-35 fighter jet crashed in Recent Mexico earlier this week, totaling the aircraft and leaving the pilot hospitalized, but in stable condition. The plane was the thirteenth F-35 lost in ten years. Despite nearly twenty years of controversy surrounding the aircraft, it has been remarkably protected to fly, and boasts an accident rate much lower than many other aircraft in America’s aerial armada.
Test Jet Crash
The crash took place on Tuesday, May twenty eighth at Kirtland Air Force Base in Recent Mexico. The aircraft, in accordance with CBS News, had just taken off, and was “en path to Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California.” The pilot, identified only as a U.S. Air Force pilot, was ferrying the aircraft from the Lockheed Martin facility at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Value to Edwards Air Force Base.
A pair of photographs uploaded to Facebook’s Air Force amn/nco/snco page showed the aircraft taking off, after which a black cloud of smoke just beyond where the aircraft was in the primary photo. The pilot, in accordance with Air & Space Forces Magazine, ejected at low altitude and was seriously injured in the method, but is now in stable condition. Two people on the bottom near the accident were treated and released.
The aircraft within the photo is an F-35B—the vertical takeoff and landing version of the F-35 utilized by the U.S. Marine Corps, Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, and Japan Air Self Defense Force. The aircraft’s lift fan door is within the raised position, meaning the aircraft was in brief takeoff mode.
Unlucky 13
Tuesday’s crash was the thirteenth lack of a F-35 since 2014. Although the explanations for the newest crash usually are not known, not less than five of the previous crashes were the results of mechanical issues, including engine fires, a faulty fuel tube, premature detonation of 25mm gun ammunition that damaged the aircraft, and a pc issue.
A minimum of five F-35 crashes have involved operator error, either on the a part of the pilot or the flight crew. One crash involved a ramp strike because the aircraft landed on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson—a dramatic incident that was caught on camera. One other involved a midair collision with a KC-130 refueling aircraft. An incident from May of 2020 was racked as much as pilot fatigue, and an incident from November of 2021 involved a Royal Air Force F-35B crashing on takeoff on account of the bottom crew failing to remove a protective cover from the engine intake. The quilt prevented the aircraft engine from generating enough lift to stay within the air, and the pilot ejected with minor injuries.
Probably the most serious incident involving an F-35 was a 2019 crash that involved a Japan Air Self Defense Force F-35A. The aircraft simply disappeared during a training flight, and the conclusion was that the pilot became disoriented and flew into the Pacific Ocean. The incident would have been prevented by the brand new Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto GCAS) software installed on F-35s shortly after the incident, which monitors the plane in flight and takes over from the pilot if it senses the aircraft is about to fly into the bottom. F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin estimates that the software, which won aviation’s prestigious Collier Trophy, will prevent 26 crashes over the lifetime of the F-35.
The F-35 is Relatively Secure
In keeping with LockMart, the worldwide F-35 fleet hit 811,000 flight hours in March of 2024. That works out to 1.6 crashes per 100,000 flight hours. About six crashes involved injuries of various severity, amounting to .73 injuries per 100,000 flight hours.
The variety of fatalities is one in 811,000 flight hours.
A 2018 Rand Corp report analyzed crash rates for various U.S. Air Force aircraft from 1950 to 2018, and reported the variety of Class A incidents amongst Air Force aircraft. The service defines Class A incidents as “a mishap leading to direct cost totaling $2 million or more, fatality or everlasting total disability, or destruction of a DoD aircraft.” The metric is imperfect—planes, especially modern fighter jets might sustain $2 million in damages and yet be repaired, and a few planes can have more pilot error incidents than others—but it surely’s an inexpensive option to measure major incidents.
Aircraft from early within the jet age experienced Class As often. As an example, the F-86 Sabre (a fighter that flew from 1950 to 1971) flew a complete of 5,543,631 hours and sustained 2,449 major incidents for an astounding rate of 44.17 crashes per 100,000 flight hours. The F-100 Super Sabre (which operated from 1953 to 1990) flew 5,471,047 hours and sustained 1,161 Class A incidents for a rate of 21.22 crashes per 100,000 flight hours.
Between the 2 planes, 394 pilots died within the crashes.
Modern U.S. Air Force planes are much safer. The F-16 Fighting Falcon totaled 376 crashes over 11,086,919 flight hours between 1975 and 2018—a mean of three.39 crashes per 100,000 hours. The F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter racked up 6,692,386 flight hours between 1972 and 2018, and has a crash rate of two.31 per 100,000 hours. The C-17 Globemaster III transport flew 3,270,830 hours between 1991 and 2018, and only had 32 Class As for a crash rate of .97 crashes per 100,000 hours.
This week’s crash, while dramatic, is proving thankfully rare. Thirteen crashes across a worldwide F-35 fleet may seem to be so much, but against the historical record, the F-35 is indisputably very protected to fly. It’s exponentially safer than the F-86 Saber and twice as protected because the F-16. By one grim metric, if the F-35 had the identical variety of pilot fatalities because the F-100, there would have been 47 dead pilots by now. As an alternative, there’s been just one.