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Is that not what the pilot did anyway? Or is a "controlled ejection" different from what they did?
Maybe everything was colder back then so they took it into account ? Dunno.
Something similar happened recently with A320 when it didn't want to land on an airfield during emergency unless it was flown in a special mode. But F-35 doesn't have that?
1. https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....
I assume a controlled ejection would have been during controlled flight at a time and location specifically chosen. This ejection was necessary because the plane was uncontrollable in the end.
The government does insure weapons of war. Who would write the policy?
Its FREE money!!!
The French were right with their strategic autonomy, de Gaulle evidently prescient, and the various EU countries falling for the F35 would have been better off choosing the Rafale or Gripen.
If you have very deep pockets like a nation has, why not simply replace the lost hardware and never insure/pay premiums(which would be calculated to net a profit to the insurer)?
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter uses a specialized hydraulic fluid that’s based on a synthetic ester formulation, not a petroleum-based fluid.
Specifically, it uses phosphate ester–based fire-resistant hydraulic fluid (commonly in the MIL-PRF-83282 or newer MIL-PRF-87257 class).
Apparently the older phosphate-ester based hydraulic fluids were hygroscopic but I'm not sure if the newer variants are.
We have no alternative we can get before 2035. They are talking about extending the F/A-18 but since we would be the only ones still using them we would have to pay for that too at who know what price.
The public approved 6 billion and now it looks like it will be way more, excluding skyrocketing maintenance which is not included and a patriot missile system that when it is finally delivered will cost who knows how many billions.
The whole thing is an absolute shit show here and that's ignoring the technical issues this thing has...
$200M for one fighter plane is insane.
If the USA ever had to go to war with this weapon, a huge number of them would be offline at any given time, and every single airframe loss would cause a huge dent in overall combat power.
I don’t understand why our military and political leaders keep trying to buy ridiculously overpriced Swiss Army knife weapons (lots of flexibility but great at nothing) instead of mass producing combat knives (only good for one thing but great at it and lots of them).
I can't imagine the stress of being on this call as an engineer. It's like a production outage but the consequences are life and death. Of course, the pilot probably felt more stressed.
I guess the engineers on the call didn’t get the memo about those pesky TPS reports.
That's not any more true.
Maybe this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tributyl_phosphate
"The major uses of TBP in industry are as a component of aircraft hydraulic fluid, brake fluid, and as a solvent for extraction and purification of rare-earth metals from their ores"
It might be better if it is hygroscopic as the water won't separate and risk forming ice plugs in the hydraulic lines.
I don't see how that detracts from the point that the F35 has been fraught with problems and operating it is dependent on an unreliably ally.
Russian milbloggers responded with, "Why can't the Russian air force fly over Ukraine like that?"
It seems to me that continuing flight with inoperative/damaged landing gear while you discuss alternatives with engineers is the safest option. Burn fuel, make a plan, let people on the ground mobilize to help, and eject when you've tried what you can and it truly becomes the safest option.
[1]: https://sites.nd.edu/biomechanics-in-the-wild/2021/04/06/top...
Think of it as various stability control modes in a modern car. Likely the aircraft needed to be put in the least restrictive flight law mode as a workaround.
The pilot could eject at any time. Still dangerous, but more of a debugging session to avoid other similar costly in the future than a Hollywood-like "if we don't solve this now the pilot dies"
I don't know how many human-manned gens of aircraft are left, but my first inclination is to think a remote-control fallback option wouldn't be out of line here if the security could be done right.
Definitely not. Ejecting is very risky. If the plane is possibly fixable you would much rather spend the time trying to calmly debug it to get it back to a point where you can land, rather than risk the possibly career ending physical injuries that can come from ejecting.
You also want to maneuver the plane into an area where it’s safer to crash.
The eject button isn’t the safe way out of every situation.
The other pilot situation you brought up isn’t so simple, either. A pilot who panic ejects before attempting to properly evaluate the situation is a risk not only to themselves but to people on the ground. Flying one of these planes is an extremely rare privilege reserved for a select few who have demonstrated their abilities and judgment to an extreme degree. It’s not a job for life and they can’t risk having someone who has demonstrated panicky judgment occupying one of the few spots that could be filled by a long line of very competent candidates.
("Total acquisition costs" vs the marginal cost of the next plane can result in a more than 2x difference in how much you think the plane costs)
The flyaway cost of buying one more plane is probably a bit under $100m though.
EDIT: Remembered Airbus exists
So of course I felt it was a sensor issue (especially since it sounded/felt great), but luckily with the equipment on board I managed a call to the flight school, who put me in touch with the mechanic. I circled above an airport as he pulled up the maintenance logs, we discussed what I was seeing, he noted that there had been a report of a sensor issue that had been squawked, so we concluded I should feel safe to fly straight home.
At the time it felt insanely cool to be able to be doing that WHILE flying the plane. While an unfortunate outcome for this particular pilot, as an elite pilot, part of me thinks when this cropped up part of him was like: "ahh right, this is why I'm top dog"
An Airbus can operate in three modes. With Normal Law, the airplane will refuse to do anything which will stop it from flying. This means the pilot cannot stall the airplane, for example: the computer will automatically correct for it.
With Alternate Law the pilot loses most protections, but the plane will still try to protect against self-destruction. The plane no longer protects against being stalled, but it won't let you rip the wings off.
With Direct Law all bets are off. Controls now map one-to-one to control surfaces, the plane will make no attempt to correct you. All kinds of automatic trimming are lost, you are now essentially flying a Cessna again. The upside is that it no longer relies on potentially broken sensors either: raising the gear while on the ground is usually a really stupid idea - until the "is the plane on the ground" sensors break.
So no, a "Boot in safe mode" isn't as strange as it might sound at first glance. It significantly improves safety during day-to-day operations, while still providing a fallback mechanism during emergencies.
Its the last resort, lesser of 2 evils situation, not some cool trick hollywood may make you believe.
But really there's a ton of small, unmanned airfields (some in peoples backyards!) that have a number you can call to operate things like the runway papi lights. Call to order a burger to go. Or just call to talk to Fred, the owner, to see how his day was.
As long as you can safely operate the aircraft, in the pattern, there's nothing stopping you from using your cell or your radio or starlink to contact ground. Just always make sure you're in communication with any air traffic controllers operating in that space.
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/10/newest-f-35-f-15ex-contr...
The F-35 base model is around $80 million, rising to the highest known price of $109 million per unit for the F-35B vertical takeoff and landing variant.
And then there's this:
"The flyaway cost for the F-15EX Eagle II is approximately $90 million for each aircraft in the program’s second production lot, about $7.5 million more than the newest price for an F-35A"
$82.5 million https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45039618
"The pilot then tried two “touch and go” landings, where the plane briefly lands, to try to straighten out the jammed nose gear, the report said."
So even if remote control was possible I’m not sure it would’ve done any good.
Of course I also don’t know why the plane would be allowed to think that it’s in ground mode when it’s 100s of feet or more in the air. Or why the hydraulic fluid was 1/3 water.
> At that point, the F-35’s sensors indicated it was on the ground and the jet’s computer systems transitioned to “automated ground-operation mode,” the report said.
And there wasn't a way to override that? I get that "manual mode" may not be a thing for a SaaS product that isn't critical, but there not being an immediate way to turn off the "drive mode" is quite surprising.
/s
Better to have something even worse on paper that can actually fly and lock targets than an expensive paperweight.
I had considered myself to be reasonably informed about the F-35, and how "everyone knows" it's a boondoggle. I think this started with a long-form article I read in 2013, "How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane": https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-alli...
Here is the HN discussion at the time, full of confident assertions that the F-35 is useless: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6211029
Fast forward to this year, when Israel's F-35s operated over Iran with total impunity. Not a single plane lost AFAIK.
Yes, papi lights are operated by radio. However, not everyone has fancy radios and only has handhelds, their Nokia phone, or their right arm wave…
It’s not all class C+ out there.
I will point out that PAPI lights as part of a PCL system are operated using mic clicks on CTAF radio. These systems are expensive and sometimes you’re landing in a grass field and just need the runway lights so you don’t run into the trees. You can click your mic as many times as you want, you’ll still be in the dark. The only way is to call Phil…
That and I'm not sure what an ejection actually means for the planes internals i.e. is it even guaranteed the electronic components won't be damaged?
Also the last thing you want in the critical emergency safety gear is more levels of complexity and additional things for the pilot to consider.
> The report notes Lockheed Martin had issued guidance on the problem the F-35’s
> sensors had in extreme cold weather in a maintenance newsletter in April 2024,
> about nine months before the crash. The problem could make it “difficult for
> the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft,” the guidance said.
>
> The temperature at the time of the crash was -1 degree Fahrenheit, the report
> said.
So nobody remembered to search for and read all available documentation? Useful lesson for every software engineer.
Still you'd hope transitions between major operation modes could have some manual confirmation. Is there some essential reason the aircraft has to automatically transition to 'automated ground operation mode' when it thinks landing is complete? Could you not just expect the pilot to punch a button to do it instead?
Anyway it’s missing the point. If the pilot can’t adequately control the airplane then a remote operator isn’t going to have a better experience.
The fictional R2-D2 had a big advantage of being in vacuum so it could work from the outside, without disturbing the airflow, and without having its work disturbed by the airflow.
Envisage what happens at 900km/h in atmosphere, if R2-D2 tries to lift up an exterior wing panel to troubleshoot a blocked line?
Even car maintenance doesn't work like that anymore. There's almost nothing you can do just by crawling around and messing with the parts there.
If it does, the new president/ruling party will probably look favorably on those who respected the crown even when they hated the guy who wore it. Because that's how the normal is.
Notably, most drones have similar levels of control. Everything has to go through the IMU of course (nobody is manually going to be managing 4 separate motor controllers at once), but depending on the modes, the type of control is wildly different.
‘Consumer’/‘idiot’ mode - you tell it which direction to go, and how high/low you want it, and it’ll do that safely. Usually with some sort of object detection/avoidance, auto GPS input, so you won’t accidentally wander into something or hit something. Goal is stable, level flight.
‘Sport’ mode - go fast, usually disables all but the most simple collision avoidance. Sometimes even that. Still provides stable, level flight, but you can easily crash it. Usually goes 2-3x faster than ‘idiot’ mode.
‘Attitude’ or ‘acrobatic’ mode - you’re directly commanding the target 3D pitch/yaw, and aggregate power output. No provision is given to automatically maintaining level flight (won’t auto level), generally no regard is given to airframe integrity, collision avoidance, or engine life, and boy is it fun.
It’s really common to crash in this mode, because people are also doing flips, acrobatic maneuvers, running courses, etc.
Drones in even ‘sport’ mode can’t do flips because it’s fundamentally at odds with auto maintaining level flight, etc.
It’s a major concern with skydiving too - there are many aircraft it’s impossible to safely exit in flight without impacting some part of the airframe.
If the U.S really takes more steps towards taking Greenland and works against NATO ally, then it might be very complicated situation for both Denmark and Finland, and the whole alliance. But until then Finland at least is stuck with the U.S.
I don't know if this is what actually happened, but it would appear to be a very effective method of sabotage... Simply putting some water in the hydraulic fluid container destined for an F35 is an extremely high risk-adjusted ROI for any saboteurs.
Do you expect it would do as well over Ukraine? Or if there was a spat with China over Taiwan (for example)?
It is possible for both things to be true.
[1]https://hiigroupasia.com/f-35-aviation-ground-support-equipm...
#vibecoding
Why isn’t there a way to override this and tell the plane “no we are not on the fucking ground, keep flying goddamnit”?
The expectation that there would be 'fair and honest' reporting about aircraft losses on the part of an aggressor is not reasonable. Why on Earth would Western powers allow themselves to be so easily embarrassed?
That's ground temperature (also balmy, for Alaska). It starts getting colder, pretty quickly, once you're in the air.
Hope they figure this out quickly, before someone ends up dead.
In this post-truth era it's strangely apt that confabulation in particular happened to be a major failure mode of our shiny new AI tech. Almost too apt for it to be a mere coincidence…
ChatGPT chickened out on that one.
I'm very curious what the reasons would be for a military aircraft
The other had wings backwards, didn't look like f35 and had engine still running after crashing into pieces.
Well, they are doing their tests in production so what else to expect?
-> No US equipment anymore.
I’m partial to the Gripen, actually.
PS: Yes, I know about the engines - but this is straightforward. (ask me why, if you’re interested)
I wonder if the F-35 has a similar gear override.
My main disappointment with the F35 is that it could have been a lot cheaper with modern design technology and manufacturing. That and the software is needlessly buggy. I had a friend working on F35 at a time I was working on software quality research, when I discussed the possibility of applying the research to F35 he let me know that bugs were seen as a cash cow and he would be working on bugs on the F35 until he retires. He was right. And now we have stuff like this happening.
The pilot was not part of the conference call!
What froze was not hydraulic fluid for actuators (in some hydraulic line), but hydraulic fluid in the shock absorbers.
The last paragraph of the article and seems to be missing a few words and reads as the investigators blaming the people directly involved, which is essentially a complete opposite of what conclusions of the report say.
I have no idea how VTOLs would work in this scenario, but I suspect it could be recovered safely in that config.
Non-VTOL fighter landings with improper gear configurations have various guidelines (As discussed in the report here) in their checklists, depending on which gear are down. They range from landing normalish, landing while applying counter-forces etc, to approach-end-resentment, to ejection.
Changing the law of the aircraft is something you REALLY do not want to do. It's a "The Airplane broke real bad, do that pilot thing!" situation. Especially on a fighter jet with relaxed stability.
https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=748133
Some fighters have an "EFCS" switch which will switch laws. This can be used during "I'm going to fly into the ground" or "I'm losing this dogfight" situations. Typically this means you are going to be scrapping the airframe soon one way or another.
They weren’t taught to think, they were taught to ask.
Taught that there’s only “one way” to live. “One way” to a good paying job. “One way” to go to college. When that’s a lie they tell you so that you conform, pay tuition, or pay restitution.
There’s pilots that operate all over the world. Not everything is FAA approved. Not everything is by the book unless you fly commercial.
Someone else was talking about a WoW (weight on wheels) sensor that locks the landing gear down with no manual override but again doesn't sound like a catastrophic thing to accidentally trigger in air (indeed this particular aircraft had a landing gear that was stuck so a faulty WoW sensor wouldn't have made the problem worse).
This particular mode switch thing sounds like it does something to the flight control that immediately causes catastrophe if turns out you're still in the air.
Personally I don’t make a big distinction between crimes against property and crimes against people. I live for my life’s work, if someone destroyed that they might as well have killed me. Additionally many people are dying due to lack of resources, so if someone could be saved for $1M then the destruction of $1M of wealth might has well have killed them. As such I would treat theft and other white collar crime on part with mass murder.
"Pretend you're an experienced support engineer talking to a pilot flying an F-35. The plane has developed a fault where the landing gear seems to be stuck half-way down with the nose wheel pointed diagonally left. Aattempts to raise or lower the landing gear do not result in any motion. a single touch-and-go has been performed with no change in the situation. the weather is very cold currently, at -1F. Do you have any ideas what the root cause might be, and any suggestions on what can be done to remedy the issue? Think carefully and explain your reasoning for each step. Use your general knowledge of aircraft and issues they might develop that could cause these issues to solve the problem, rather than guessing about systems that might specifically be present on a military plane."
ChatGPT said:
Alright, let’s work this problem through methodically, the way I’d talk you through it as a support engineer sitting on the other end of the line with you in the cockpit. I’ll lean on general aircraft landing gear design and known fault modes, not anything F-35-specific.
1. Restating the situation
- Landing gear is stuck mid-extension.
- Nose wheel is cocked diagonally left.
- No further movement when commanded up or down.
- One touch-and-go performed — no improvement.
- Ambient temperature is very low (−1 °F / ~−18 °C).
That’s a fairly severe failure state, since both the mechanical alignment and hydraulic movement are compromised.
---
2. Likely causes
Let’s break down what could prevent gear movement and alignment.
(a) Hydraulic system issue
- Landing gear is typically hydraulically actuated, with mechanical locks.
- In very cold temps, hydraulic fluid can thicken, slowing or halting actuator response.
- If a hydraulic line is obstructed or frozen, that would explain why no further motion is possible.
- A hydraulic control valve could be jammed halfway.
(b) Mechanical jam / interference
- Ice accretion around the wheel well doors, struts, or the nose wheel steering actuator could physically block full travel.
- Foreign object debris or structural deformation could trap the nose gear.
- Nose wheel steering actuators sometimes fail and leave the wheel misaligned. Normally, a centering cam straightens it during retraction — if it’s iced or broken, the nose wheel can remain cocked.
(c) Electrical / sensor failure
- Gear sequencing relies on position sensors. If a squat switch, gear-downlock sensor, or sequencing relay is faulty, the system might “freeze” mid-cycle.
- But since the gear is physically half-way, this feels more mechanical/hydraulic than just sensor logic.
---
3. Why the nose wheel being cocked matters
Normally, when retracting, the nose wheel passes through a centering cam or is hydraulically straightened before stowage.
- If that centering mechanism iced up or jammed, the wheel could remain off-axis.
- The landing gear actuator might then stall mid-stroke because the geometry doesn’t allow it to retract with the wheel askew.
- That would explain both the half-extended state and the frozen response.
---
4. Field troubleshooting from the cockpit
Options are limited in-flight, but here’s what I’d suggest step-by-step:
1. Recycle the gear: You’ve tried once already. Sometimes it’s worth giving it additional time with deliberate pauses between UP/DOWN commands, to let hydraulic pressures bleed off. But repeated cycling risks further jamming.
2. Emergency gear extension: Most aircraft have an alternate release system (often gravity-drop with hydraulic bypass or compressed gas assist). That bypasses sequencing valves and lets the gear fall into place. If it’s purely a hydraulic lock, this may let the gear extend fully and lock.
- If you haven’t already: consider attempting emergency extension.
3. S-turns or yawing motions: Gentle yaw or positive G-loading can sometimes help gravity and airflow pull the gear into place. Not aggressive, but enough to “jostle” the jammed mechanism.
4. Thermal factor: At −1 °F, icing and fluid thickening are prime suspects. Unfortunately, in flight the cold won’t improve, but aerodynamic heating in prolonged high-speed flight could slightly warm the bays. That might free up iced components — but it’s not guaranteed.
5. Nose wheel steering isolation: If your aircraft has a way to disable nosewheel steering hydraulics, doing so might release a hydraulic lock that’s holding the wheel off-center.
---
5. Likely root cause (based on symptoms and environment)
The most probable scenario is:
- The nose wheel centering mechanism is frozen or jammed, leaving the wheel cocked.
- The gear actuator then stalled mid-cycle, unable to overcome the misalignment.
- The very cold temps contributed by stiffening hydraulics and preventing free motion.
---
6. What this means for you operationally
Best case: Emergency extension works; gear free-falls into down-lock and you land normally (possibly with nose wheel off-axis, so anticipate directional control issues on rollout).
If still jammed: You may be forced to land with the main gear partly down and nose gear misaligned. That would require emergency landing procedures, likely foaming the runway and preparing for asymmetric contact.
Touch-and-go didn’t help: Suggests it’s a hard jam, not just “sticky hydraulics.”
---
My recommendation:
Attempt emergency extension immediately.
If that fails, fly some time at higher speed to warm the bays, then retry.
Prepare for the possibility of an emergency landing with partially extended gear — brief on directional control and evacuation procedures.
This incident is a data point in the "right to repair" where Congress is trying to force defense contractors to make all of their equipment entirely maintained by DoD workers, apparently they make mistakes though because in this case it is the stupid failure of a significant portion of the hydraulic fluid being water (which is a problem you could cause in your car but don't because you're not foolish and you put in the correct fluid and don't just fill your radiator up with water)
Same way car seat belts horribly injure people if they let it rest on their stomachs instead of on their hips.
Just to clarify to unfamiliar readers: class deltas exist with ground and tower, and after hours pilot controlled lighting. Untowered class echoes are everywhere, with pilot controlled lighting.
Yes, many untowered airports have pilot controlled lighting via ctaf, as stated in the airport facilities directory. This is very common at class E airports. For example, look at Plattsmouth in Nebraska.
It sounds like your core argument is “some private strips don’t have full infrastructure”. Phil’s private strip does not appear in the AFD, so you as the pilot your flight planning needs to include looking up Phil’s number and calling him to get permission to land and to let him know you’ll need the lights.
If it’s not that then I don’t know what your point is.
tho looking at how contracts have traditionally been funded you’d be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t
https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....
Edit: While CNN says the air force blamed the crash on ice in the hydraulic lines, it's obvious that ice can't be legally culpable. The report actually says:
> Additionally, the [Accident Investigation Board] president found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that crew decision making including those on the in-flight conference call, lack of oversight for the Hazardous materials program, and lack of adherence to maintenance procedures for hydraulic servicing were substantially contributing factors.
They note further down that "The 355th FGS hazardous materials program (HAZMAT) program suffered from insufficient manning and frequent supervision changes at times relevant to the mishap." Basically, they had a barrel of hydraulic oil that sat outside and no one took care of it.
Also interesting is the 6 February 2025 incident, where another aircraft, barely a week after the one that crashed, had the same issue. They tested it inside a heated hangar, then outside in the 15F cold where they reproduced the weight-on-wheels sensor malfunctions, then brought it back in and drained the hydraulic fluid...there's a TON of water in those lines! I'm more familiar with industrial hydraulics in factories and earth-moving equipment, not with aviation...but we have water separators because a few drops of water can be enough to mess with the servo valves when you're near caviation limits. "...approximately one third of the fluid retrieved from the [landing gear] was water" is NOT RIGHT.
Also, I chuckled on reading "...the barrel tested with more than 1024 parts per million (ppm) particulates, which is more than double the allowable limit for particulates in hydraulic fluid... It is important to note that the test does not accurately measure contaminates above 1024ppm, so the contamination was potentially far greater than 1024ppm"
Gives strong "3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible" vibes!
When Russians were still flying planes deep over Ukraine, they have something like a 50% fatality rate on ejection, but that might be exacerbated by Ukrainian locals often finding the ejected pilots before any military force does, and people getting bombed have historically not liked the people flying the bombers much. When a pilot on the ground has a lot of bruises and a snapped neck, it's often hard to identify whether that happened during the ejection, during the landing, or after. And even when the cause was clearly violence, the emergency services might not be overly interested in blaming anyone or anything but the seat.
somewhat sensationalistic?! The article clearly tries to give the impression the pilot was on the call:
> A US Air Force F-35 pilot spent 50 minutes on an airborne conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to solve a problem with his fighter jet before he ejected
Knowing the quality of media these days, it wouldn't surprise me if it CNN just got it really wrong, but also wouldn't surprise me they'd do some brazen lie for clicks.
Edit: Reading the report, it seems like you, dear fellow HN commentator, got it wrong in this case, sorry to say :) Seems indeed the pilot itself was on the call:
> The mishap pilot (MP), assigned to the 354th FW, ejected safely before impact. [...] The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers. The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action
Page 35 from https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....
…so Portugal shouldn’t make the best possible deal they can?
Sometimes HN is surreal…
Opening line:
> A US Air Force F-35 pilot spent 50 minutes on an airborne conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to solve a problem with his fighter jet before he ejected
Am I illiterate or misreading it?
> After going through system checklists in an attempt to remedy the problem, the pilot got on a conference call with engineers from the plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, *as the plane flew near the air base. *
Is this actually some insane weasel-wording by CNN? "We never said the pilot (he is in fact a pilot) was the one flying the jet, we just said 'as the plane flew', not 'as he flew the plane', using passive voice, so we're not wrong - but it was another pilot flying the plane"
Something, something, mote in your neighbor's eye, mumble, something...
... but even if the seat in question was able to adjust the ejection thrust (which I don't think it was), this particular situation involved ejection really close to the ground, which calls for maximum thrust.
> In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
basically that and the knoll's law on media accuracy:
> Knoll’s law of media accuracy is the adage that “everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge”.
But I'm interested in the reporting. There are, you know, journalistic standards, which are considered kinda "journalism 101"! For instance, getting the basic facts of a story correct - especially the facts stated in the headline.
So I'm curious, did the reporter do their due diligence, and write the article in a way that is factually correct, but highly misleading? Or did they simply not follow basic reporting protocol?
> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF)
"MP" is the pilot
> A conference hotel is a call that can be initiated by the SOF to speak directly with Lockheed Martin engineers to discuss an abnormality/malfunction not addressed in the PCL (Tab V-13.1, 14.1, 15.1, 16.1, 17.1). While waiting for the conference hotel to convene, the MP initiated a series of “sturns” with gravitational forces up to 2.5Gs, as well as a slip maneuver (i.e., left stick input with full right rudder pedal) to see if the nose wheel orientation would change (Tabs N-12, BB-201- 02). Upon visual inspection, the MW reported no change to the nose wheel (Tab N-13). The SOF informed the MP he was on the phone with the conference hotel and Lockheed Martin were getting the LG subject matter experts (SME)
So the pilot was, in effect, on the call, even if not directly on the phone. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing an F-35 pilot had radio comms with the SOF who was on a phone line. It's a layer of indirection, but the pilot was essentially exchanging info in real time with the conference call. Its not a stretch to colloquially say that the pilot was "in the conference call"
Basically, Lockheed Martin engineers told the air force to attempt re-centering with touch-and-go landings, but didn't realize that this could mess with the weight-on-wheels sensors and cause it to switch flight modes.
And then twenty years later, I'm pretty convinced that the online siloing has worn us down. A lot of us. But the problems that came weren't what the reactionaries were going on about. It never is.
It's been ten years since my friend and I were saying as I was walking out the door, "This whole internet thing, let just.." "...yeah, let's turn it off." There was profound sense of optimism in the early internet. We saw it together, and we knew it hadn't worked out, that it was stabilizing onto a kind of bad trajectory.
I still don't think the optimism was wrong. I think we're in some kind of perverse equilibrium where there are dams exist that, if they did not, would lead to some wildly different world rushing in, like what if you came to realize one day that 9/11 and all its self-inflicted after-effects never happened levels of mass self-transformation.
Someone else brought up surveillance economy, and that's really relevant here and to what I'm doing. I think the ad-economy alone has a lot of perverse incentive that has basically destroyed journalism and the meaning of credibility for now. But the idea of the surveillance economy is right about how the pieces fit together like cursed legos. We have content that is addictive but not entertaining being used to serve us ads for things we don't need.
It's not just that we need to commercialize open source if it will ever reach mass market. We have to better monetize independent media for its goodness and coherence with reality or we're never going to have a shared set of facts in our social consciousness again.
I've wondered about that a lot over the years. I generally don't fly on Fridays after noon anymore, not for work, nobody wants to actually be there at that time. I'm really curious about the process. What kind of system integration has a fuel door system that is so tightly integrated to the rest of the computers that it requries a complete reboot to reset? Was that some mechanic's last idea? Was it from Boeing or Airbus? Is it in the playbook? Is there a more elaborate debug process and they short cutted by rebooting? Is there a fault log that will help fix the actual issue or is it just gone? I dutifully got on the plane that time but I've sort of concluded that in the future, I'd make some calls and just pay too much to spend the night at the airport hotel and fly the next day.
"So here's the thing Mr. F-35 pilot.... the plane needs ctrl-alt-delete but it will drop like a rock from the sky while the computers are booting up... so you need to hold down the power button for 5 seconds, like a solid 5 Mississippis and then all the lights will shut off. Wait another 5 seconds and the press the power button again and it shoooould boot back up... You'll hear a nice pleasant chime and see our logo on the flight control monitor and then after about a minute when the POST completes and it boots up, you should be back in action.." Everyone involved with all of that is just cut from different cloth.
I read this as "The pilot initiated a conference call, but was put on hold [i.e. not actually in the conference call in any meaningful way]." So he was both on and not on the conference call.
The Zen Koan of the Mishap Pilot. Sounds like an Iron Maiden song.
You are free to draw your own conclusions of course. I worked for Lockheed previously in my career, and some in my family still do. Though I hold no stock or other ties now (different career, different industry), my experience does lead me to take the authors at face value. There are many issues with Lockheed leadership, but professional integrity is not one of them.
"At 21:12:52Z, the SOF informed the MP, “Alright the engineers uh are not optimistic about this COA but, extremely low PK [probability kill, meaning the probability this would fix the issue], but we’re going to try anyway is a touch-and-go on the runway, mains only, do not touch the nose gear, uh lift back off in all cases and have the uh have Yeti 4 reconfirm the nose gear position once your safely airborne.”"
No need for this if the pilot was on the call directly.
> "The MP responded “14.5” ... and then opined a “conference hotel” was appropriate for this situation (Tab N-12)." (pg. 13)
> "The MP, utilizing the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF) in the air traffic control (ATC) tower, initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin (LM)" (pg. 8)
> "The SOF informed the MP he was on the phone with the conference hotel and Lockheed Martin were getting the LG subject matter experts (SME) on the line ...no transcript is available because the call was made on a personal phone rather than the legal voice recorder in the air traffic control tower" (pg. 13)
in the last statement, he means that the SOF was informing the MP that the SOF was on the conference call and would relay information. The mishap pilot (MP) was speaking to the supervisor of flying (SOF), almost certainly via radio. He asked the SOF, in the control tower to set up a conference call. For reasons, maybe of expediency or technical failure, or norms or something, the SOF made that call on his personal cell phone. The MP was not 'on the phone' but the SOF would have primaily functioned as a relay between radio and phone. The purpose of the call was to get information from the pilot to the engineers and from the engineers to the pilot. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate* means he doesn't need to cognitive load of actually listening as the SOF and engineers think through what to do and decide on a plan. He needs to fly the plane and provide information necessary to help figure out how to aviate.
If you want to harp on CNN for accuracy, I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities but this feels pedantic. It is like saying 'the astronauts weren't talking to mission control, they were talking to the capcom. Only the capcom talked to mission control'.
I suspect that in the non-public version of this report there is more discussion of the decision and alternatives to doing that call on a personal cell phone for two reasons. (1) As noted in the report it means that conference isn't recorded and a transcript is not available to the investigators (thats shocking to me). (2) Detailed aircraft systems information, which is highly controlled, is being discussed on an open line.
* Funny enough, the third time the report defines SOF, they have a typo "supervisor of lying" (pg. 36)
But to dismiss basic VFR to say “That’s not in the manual!” “Sounds like LLM nonsense” and say Phil can’t see your arm waving from a Piper is ridiculous.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/10/31/pilot-of-f-35...
>Passenger safety requires that in commercial airplanes hydraulic actuators be powered by fire-resistant hydraulic fluids. As a downside, such fluids are hygroscopic which means that these tend to accumulate humidity from the environment
If you pet barks, do you still call it a cat? Of course not.
Links make it journalism. Not linking makes it reporting. They should not be considered synonymous.
The point is, people who should know better keep calling the likes of CNN journalism and those who don’t know any better keep believing they’re consuming content and forming understanding based on journalism.
Pretty sure you meant to use the past tense here: "There _were_ journalistic standards..."
The F-35 could compare weight on wheels to airspeed as a simple sanity check.
All of it applies after all, to a tee.
Tell me, when has an F35 failed to perform in combat duties? You're running off of internet memes from a decade ago while the F35 was still in development (and having a bad time of it). They are selling like crazy, and it's not because their customers are misinformed about the capabilities.
it's better to evenly distribute water throughout the fluid, than to have it accumulate in a low point
So, from the actual report:
> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF). The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action.
Seems like he was at some level a part of the conference call. Even if they are on hold, it still sounds like they were a part of it at some level. Seems reasonable to me.
> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF). The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action.
Seems accurate to what CNN was reporting. It's simplified a bit, but it's not misleading to me.
I mean, I guess if you want to nit pick and suggest "No the pilot wasn't literally on a phone and there was an intermediary in between" or some such, but the report makes it seem like CNN is accurate.
https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....
> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF). The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action.
"though the SOF" implies a middle-man, but I imagine that's because you don't want literally hook up a conference call directly to the cockpit. That being said, seems like the pilot was effectively on the conference call.
Unless you want to suggest I don't trust the report?
https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....
Um, actually, they were talking to a mic. And the mic converted the noise... /s
But yeah, excellent comment here.
Your points are all over the place here, and I have to conclude you don't have any experience in this topic, and you've invented some contrived example that won't happen in practice.
Obviously you can’t wave your arm at night to get someone’s attention. You’re picking arguments against common sense and straw manning them into something I didn’t proclaim.
On a bright sunny day, when I’m in my cub, I often wave. Sometimes I get a wave back to bring her down. To argue that, because you’re some commercial pilot or something with 98% VFR flights, you’ve never been directed by arm signal? Where did you learn to fly?
I stated that in some fields, you may be able to wave your arm and that would be enough. You may use your radio to control the PCL. You may use your radio to tell Fred to turn the lights on. You may call Phil to do the same. You might even phone his telephony system he rigged and press #5 to turn the lights on.
Waving your arms at night will get you no where. Try paramotoring at dusk and see how well your glass cockpit training does then.
On projects that I've worked on we used the WOW switches as a backup and primarily used air speed to determine if the plane was on the ground or not. I'm surprised that the plane was able to enter "on ground" control law while it was still flying based only on the status of the WOW switches. It seems to me like there should be some additional checks before entering a state that makes the aircraft "uncontrollable".
The above post is focused on a Sukhoi jet, with some comparison to Airbus' design, but they also cover Airbus in another post: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-long-way-down-the-cr...
> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF). The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action.
So it was the SOF on the conference call, relaying information to and from the pilot over the radio. This is more clear if you read the sequence of events on pages 7-10.
Not that it makes that much of a difference. Either way, he's up there waiting while the engineers on the ground troubleshoot the problem.
The f22 is more elegant though