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

(www.cnn.com)
279 points Michelangelo11 | 2 comments | 27 Aug 25 11:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.517s | source
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dfox ◴[27 Aug 25 15:03 UTC] No.45040695[source]▶
The article is somewhat sensationalistic. If you read the actual report you will find out that:

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.

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ozim ◴[27 Aug 25 15:49 UTC] No.45041304[source]▶
Still interesting part is: them trying to fix the problem - made the plane crash.

Of course it couldn’t land but still, tweaking stuff while flying was ultimately causing loss of control.

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LeifCarrotson ◴[27 Aug 25 16:02 UTC] No.45041472[source]▶
The report actually says it could have landed. A week later, another F35 at the same base had the same problem, it landed with its nose gear 6 degrees off center and the pilot barely noticed.

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.

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1. stackskipton ◴[27 Aug 25 16:44 UTC] No.45041991[source]▶
I’ve always wondered why weight on wheel modes don’t have more checks, detecting weight on wheels but seeing 150+ Indicated Air speed and RALT is greater then 15ft, maybe issue caution instead of screwing with flight mode.
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2. LorenPechtel ◴[27 Aug 25 19:22 UTC] No.45043873[source]▶
Yeah, they put too much faith in their sensors. Too many planes have crashed because of blind reliance on sensors that sometimes fail. Cross check whether things make sense before doing potentially catastrophic actions.

And don't skimp on the maintenance budget. Sounds like they had too much to do, too few people to do it, leading to not taking proper care.