JAKARTA - The pilot of a United States F-35C Lightning II fighter jet was ejected when his jet crashed while landing on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) in the South China Sea, injuring seven people, the US Pacific Fleet said in a statement Monday.
The pilot was carrying out routine flight operations when the crash occurred. They were safely evacuated and found by military helicopters, the Pacific Fleet said. The pilot is in stable condition.
Six others were injured on the carrier deck. Three people required evacuation to a medical facility in Manila, Philippines, where they are in stable condition, according to the Pacific Fleet. The other three sailors have been treated onboard the carrier and have been released.
The cause of what the statement called an "in-flight accident" is being investigated.
The crash was a first for the F-35C, the US Navy's variant of the single-engine stealth fighter, designed for operations outside aircraft carriers.
The F-35A, flown by the Air Force, takes off and lands on conventional runways, and the F-35B, the Marine Corps version, is a short takeoff vertical landing aircraft that can operate from the Navy's amphibious assault ships.
Versions of the F-35 are also flown by US allies and partners, including Japan, South Korea, Britain, Australia, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, and Israel. More countries have orders for the jet.
The US Navy variant "featured a more robust landing gear to handle aircraft carrier takeoffs and landings, folding wings to fit on crowded flight decks, a larger wing, a slightly larger payload, and a slightly longer operating range", according to aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
The F-35C is the last of three operational variants, entering service on 28 February 2019.
Meanwhile, the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) was the first of 11 US Navy aircraft carriers to deploy with the F-35C when it left San Diego last August.
"This deployment marks the first time in US naval aviation history that a stealth fighter has been operationally deployed on an aircraft carrier", Lockheed Martin said, citing CNN on January 25.
The addition of the F-35C to Carrier Air Wing 2 aboard the USS Carl Vinson for its current deployment, marks the first time a US aircraft carrier has flown with what the Navy calls the "air wing of the future", which also includes the F/A-18E/F fighter jet, the EA-18G electronic warfare aircraft, the E-2D airborne early warning aircraft, and the CMV-22 tilt-rotor transport.
Monday's crash in the South China Sea was the second of the F-35's this year. On January 4, South Korean F-35 pilots made an emergency "belly landing" at an airbase on Tuesday after their landing gear malfunctioned due to an electronic problem, according to the South Korean Air Force.
In previous years, the F-35 had been involved in at least eight other incidents, according to records maintained by the crowdsourced website F-16.net.
Last November, a British F-35B crashed into the Mediterranean Sea from the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. The pilot managed to eject safely.
In May 2020, the pilot was ejected safely when a US Air Force F-35 crashed while landing at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The Air Force attributed the crash to a variety of factors involving the pilot and aircraft systems.
In April 2019, a Japanese F-35 crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Japan's northern coast, killing its pilot. The Japanese military blamed the crash on spatial disorientation, "a situation in which a pilot is unable to correctly sense the position, attitude, altitude, or movement of the aircraft", according to the journal 'Military Medicine'.
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To note, when the latest accident occurred, the USS Carl Vinson and its escorts were operating in the South China Sea along with the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group in a two-carrier operation that began on Sunday, according to Navy social media accounts.
The two strike groups along with a Japanese helicopter destroyer held a major drill Saturday in the Philippine Sea, the part of the Pacific Ocean between Taiwan and the US island territory of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
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