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

Isn’t F-35 capable of VTOL? Couldn’t they just land on the belly? Or the malfunctioning landing gears disabled VTOL?

The F-35B is the VTOL variant.

The Air Force doesn't fly the F-35B, they fly the F-35A.

IIRC USAF does not use the F-35B, which to my knowledge, is the only VTOL capable F-35 variant.

Not this variant.

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.

No. F-35A is conventional take-off and landing. F-35B is STOVL. F-35C is CATOBAR (catapult take-off, arrestor landing).

Not the A variant, which is what USAF flies.

Army, Marines, Navy?

Air Force. The Army doesn't operate the F-35.