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.
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....
> 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 for the engineers on the ground to troubleshoot the problem.
> 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
And
> 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 - Page 2
I quoted from the Page 35, you quoted from the Page 2, not confusing at all of them to have very similar stuff with slightly different meaning, all in the same document :) Thanks nonetheless for the additional context!