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

(www.cnn.com)
278 points Michelangelo11 | 2 comments | 27 Aug 25 11:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.451s | 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. aidenn0 ◴[27 Aug 25 16:46 UTC] No.45042013[source]▶
Not being able to do a touch-and-go without crashing afterwards seems like a significant flaw in the aircraft.

Isn't there an arrested-landing equipped version of the F35? Could this same problem happen with a bolter?

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2. dfox ◴[27 Aug 25 19:37 UTC] No.45044075[source]▶
The mishap involves doing touch-and-go twice with an arrested landing capable version of the aircraft. The report even says that they considered doing arrested landing, but it was deemed as too much risk for the pilot (apparently the actual flight manual of F-35A advises against trying that with non-centered NLG), because the ways how that could go horribly wrong do not allow for safe ejection.