US Air Force Pilot has spent 50 minutes in a massive mass call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to solve a problem with the fighter plane before taking it out and the plane She fell to the ground In Alaska earlier this year, a report on accidents says this week.
The crash of January 28 at the Eyelson Air Force Base in Fairbanks video The plane showed landing directly down and exploding in a fiery ball. The pilot was safely expelled, as he only suffers from minor injuries, but a $ 200 million fighter plane has been destroyed.
The Air Force investigation blamed the ice in the hydraulic lines in the nose and the main landing of the F-35, which prevented them from spreading properly.
According to the report, after taking off, the pilot tried to back down from the landing equipment, but he will not do it completely. When lowering it again, it will not focus on an angle to the left. Attempts to repair the landing equipment in the belief of the fighter plane caused it to be on the ground, which eventually led to the accident.
After passing through the system review lists in an attempt to treat the problem, the pilot received a phone call with engineers from the manufacturer on the plane, Lockheed Martin, while the plane was near the air base. The report said that five engineers participated in the call, including the senior software engineer, aviation safety engineer, and three delegation of landing systems.
The report said that the pilot then tried to try “touch and go”, as the plane landed shortly, to try to straighten the sprayed nose equipment.
The US Air Force F -35a Lightning II is seen at the Eyelson Air Force Base, Alaska, in 2021. – Colin Colin Kultid/US Air Force
But those attempts failed in the modern wheel of the nose and led to the freezing of both the main left and Yemeni gears and the inability to fully expand to try to actually decline.
At this stage, F-35 sensors indicated that they were on the ground and the transfer of the Hit computer systems to “automatic ground operation mode”, the report said.
This caused the fighter plane to become “irreplaceable” because it was “Opera) as if it were on the ground when flying,” which forces the pilot to take out.
The plane’s wreckage was found that about a third of the liquid in hydraulic systems in both the nose and the right main landing was water, when there should be nothing.
The investigation found a similar problem in the hydraulic ice in the other F-35 at the same base during a nine-day flight after its crash, but that plane was able to land without an accident.
The report notes that Lockheed Martin has issued instructions on the problem that the F-35 sensors in the severe cold weather in a news message to maintenance in April 2024, about nine months before the accident. The instructions said the problem may make the pilot to keep controlling the plane.
The report said that the temperature at the time of the accident was -1 degrees Fahrenheit.
Reports said that the participants in the work conference referred to the newsletter in maintenance for the year 2024, “they were likely to have advised the planned stoppage to the full decline or an oversight expulsion instead of touch and the second delivery” that ultimately led to the circumstances that caused the accident.
CNN contacted Lockheed Martin to comment on the Air Force report.
The Air Force Investigation Council concluded that “making decisions from the crew, including those on the mass call on the plane”, “the lack of” supervising the dangerous materials program “, which oversees the storage and distribution of hydraulic fluid, and not properly following the procedures for hydraulic aircraft service.
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