F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

If a third of the hydraulic fluid was water, it was like that meme video of the woman who added washer fluid to the car’s oil - no way was that going to work properly.

I'm surprised no one is mentioning this, and the fact the article says this is the second of such incidents...

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.

> very effective method of sabotage.

No need for sabotage on the F-35. It's perfectly capable of destroying itself without any third-party interference.

For counterbalance to this point, it is very common for water to get into hydraulic fluid. Moisture from air condenses in containers when they transition from hot to cold environments.

Username checks out!

That’s interesting. Can this effect pretty easily achieve the reported 30% water content?

The F35 is deployed at scale and has fairly normal accident rates for a new, maintenance heavy plane. You just don't hear about every single F16 that crashes.