A Marine Corps jet on mortgage to the Navy for its High Gun faculty took a nosedive final month whereas in a hangar at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, the Corps advised Navy.com on Friday.
A picture of the jet, an F-35C Lightning II, was posted on social media earlier this month exhibiting it face-planted onto the concrete in a hangar. Navy.com reached out to third Marine Air Wing, or third MAW, the unit that owns the roughly $100 million fifth-generation fighter jet, final week asking to verify the incident.
A spokesperson for third MAW, Capt. Stephanie Leguizamon, mentioned that the nostril gear of the F-35 “collapsed” following shutdown procedures on the flight line on the naval air station. The jet was parked when it collapsed on Jan. 26, she mentioned.
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“The injury was confined to the nostril touchdown gear, and we count on this jet to be repaired and absolutely operational quickly,” Leguizamon mentioned. “There have been no accidents to any navy or civilian personnel.”
The jet was loaned to the Navy to assist its Strike Fighter Techniques Teacher program, extra popularly known as the High Gun faculty. The varsity teaches naval aviators the right way to fly jets just like the F-35, in addition to the F-16 Combating Falcon and F/A-18 Tremendous Hornet, and was popularized by the movie collection of the identical identify.
The jet was supplied by Marine Fighter Assault Squadron 311, based on Leguizamon and the insignia on the aspect of the jet within the social media submit. VMFA-311 relies out of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California.
“The third Marine Plane Wing routinely offers plane and upkeep personnel to assist High Gun college students and the general course,” Leguizamon mentioned. Navy.com initially reached out to third MAW final week concerning the incident.
The publication additionally requested for an estimate of the injury, however Leguizamon mentioned that the incident is underneath investigation and that the price of the injury “is being assessed via our investigative course of.”
This isn’t the primary time that an F-35 has taken a nosedive. In 2022, a Marine Corps F-35B‘s nostril cone was broken after it made a “precautionary touchdown” at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. In that occasion, the jet’s touchdown gear failed whereas being towed to the flight line.
The F-35 is flown by the Marine Corps, Air Pressure and Navy. The general F-35 program, which noticed its first flight practically 20 years in the past, prices roughly $1.7 trillion. The jet, which may attain speeds of greater than 1,200 miles per hour and has capabilities to jam radars, monitor enemy plane and inform its pilot minute particulars about its efficiency, is probably the most superior fighter plane developed to this point.
Final yr, the Marine Corps briefly misplaced one of many fighter jets over South Carolina, prompting Joint Base Charleston to ask the general public for assist in discovering it. After a daylong search, it was positioned in a particles area roughly two hours north of the bottom.
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