Why the F-35 Fighter Jet Crash Impacts Us All
A Lockheed Martin F-35A flying through the air. Source for Image: Bloomberg / George Frey
An F-35B Lightning II fighter jet went missing after a Marine Corps pilot ejected from the vehicle and crashed in a backyard in North Charleston, SC on September 17th. The pilot was nearly 1,000 feet from the Charleston International Airport, where they would have landed before they made the decision to eject. The United States Military announced that the wreckage of the plane was found a day later about 60 miles away in Indiantown, South Carolina. This discovery was made after the Joint Base Charleston made a plea for help from other agencies and the public, releasing a phone number that anyone could contact with any information about the jet.
Asking the public to look for a missing jet was confusing enough, but people were also wondering how exactly a fighter jet got lost in the first place. Furthermore, what implications does this have for American citizens?
What is an F-35?
The F-35 is a jet made by Lockheed Martin. The company designed the aircraft to be able to go fast enough to essentially avoid being on the enemy’s radar. The aircraft also has the ability to direct its own missiles or those of other planes, ships, and ground bases to target enemies that the F-35 can see from above. The United States has purchased three different styles of these jets: the F-35A for the Air Force, the F-35B for the Marine Corps, and the F-35C for the Navy. The United States uses the F-35 in seven different NATO nations in an effort to show their military support and appreciation to their allies. Most recently, the U.S. sent four F-35s to a Danish airbase.
The F-35 has experienced delays and high costs over the course of its rollout. According to USA Today, the Government Accountability Office said the project is seven years behind schedule and 70% over the budget. The U.S. Department of Defense is expected to spend $1.7 trillion on about 2,500 F-35s in the future. The helmet alone for an F-35 pilot is $400,000. This is more than four times the cost that the Air Force was previously paying for the F-16 jet helmets.
Not only is the aircraft expensive, it hasn’t shown tremendous rates of reliability. According to a Government Accountability Office test, the jets were found to be mission-capable just above half of the time. This means that they were only able to fly and perform tasks when they were needed just 50% of the time. When the project had just started, the Pentagon suspended test flights of the F-35s because of recurring engine issues. Today, the machine is continuously facing problems.
Due to a variety of issues such as engine failure, the F-35 aircraft are not able to fly as often as the public would like. This can be frustrating for U.S. citizens and representatives considering there will be a total of nearly $2 trillion in maintenance fees and other costs over the lifespan of a single aircraft.
How does something so expensive ‘go missing’?
It has not yet been confirmed why exactly the pilot chose to eject from the plane in South Carolina. The pilot jumped from the plane at an altitude of 1,000 feet and landed safely in a residential backyard. He was later released from the hospital and had suffered no major injuries from the incident.
According to a Marine Corps official, the pilot “experienced a malfunction and was forced to eject.” In order to preserve the investigative process, the Marine Corps official was not allowed to give any further detail on the matter.
Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, voiced her frustrations when she posted to social media, “How in the hell do you lose an F-35?” She went on to write, “It’s very frustrating to not have any answers.” While the Joint Base Charleton requested the public to help, there are now no answers as to why this situation happened. ABC News contributor and retired Col. Steve Ganyard weighed in to express his concerns on the matter. “Even though it's a stealth aircraft, losing a stealth aircraft is hard to understand. ... It does seem ridiculous that an aircraft this expensive, this sophisticated, it could just vanish,” he said. Ganyard then explains that the transponder that was on the F-35 could have helped locate it, but the Marine Corps has not clarified whether or not it was working.
This marks the ninth total crash since the planes came into operation. However, they have been grounded for several different reasons. These include being unable to deliver oxygen to the pilots, having machine guns that can’t shoot straight, and the inability of the plane to fly at its top speeds.
How does this affect us going forward?
Even the most pro-defense members of Congress are confused about this situation and weary of the spending and costs it will accumulate. Yet, that hasn’t stopped the government. The Defense Department signed a $30 billion contract earlier this year to purchase 398 more planes for the U.S. and the rest of NATO. Rep. Adam Smith, the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said, “There’s no real scenario where we’d scrap it at this point.”
With extremely high spending costs, it is easy to understand how U.S. citizens can be frustrated with the wreckage that occurred in South Carolina. With the majority of the Department of Defense funded directly from taxpayer dollars, it can be confusing to hear that they have lost a nearly $80 million fighter jet. Furthermore, they know that their paycheck has contributed to that cost. So, why does the government continue to fund the F-35 operation when it has continued to cause so many problems? Does the government feel obligated to continue with this program because of the copious amounts of money they have already spent? Or perhaps are there other factors, such as lobbying, that are keeping the project afloat? In the future, instances such as this one may send major alarm bells when thinking about the reality of the government’s military spending.