F-35 stealth fighter jet worth $90m crashes at Florida air force base just days after $150m F-22 crashed at same airfield
- A U.S. Air Force F-35 stealth fighter jet crashed at the Eglin Air Force base in Florida at around 9.30pm Tuesday night, the Air Force said
- The pilot ejected from the $90million jet and was taken to a local hospital
- It is the second crash in four days at the airfield
- Last Friday, a pilot successfully ejected from a F-22 Raptor fighter jet that crashed during a training flight at the same airfield
- The F-22 was part of the 325th Fighter Wing based in northern Florida, about 40 miles east of Pensacola
- The crash took place around 9:15am northeast of the base on a training range, and there was no damage to people or property when the jet hit the ground
- The pilot, who was not identified, was hospitalized after the crash and was said to be in the company of relatives
A U.S. Air Force F-35 stealth fighter jet crashed at a Florida base on Tuesday night just days after a F-22 crashed at the same airfield, the Air Force said.
A fifth-generation F-35A Lightning II, which costs an estimated $90 million, crashed at Eglin Air Force Base at around 9.30pm on Tuesday.
The pilot ejected successfully from the jet and was taken to a local hospital but is in a stable condition.
'At the time of the accident, the pilot was participating in a routine night training sortie,' said a statement from the base.
A F-35 stealth fighter jet similar to the one shown here crashed at Eglin Air Force base on Tuesday night. The pilot successfully ejected from the plane and is in a stable condition
Eglin Air Force Base is located in northern Florida, about 40 miles east of Pensacol
'First responders from the 96th Test Wing are on the scene and the site is secured. The accident is under investigation. There was no loss of life or damage to civilian.'
The jet was assigned to the 58th Fighter Squadron but the pilot's name is not yet being released.
It is the second crash in four days at the airfield.
On Friday, another pilot also successfully ejected from a U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jet that crashed during a training flight at the same airfield.
The $150million F-22 was part of the 325th Fighter Wing based at Eglin Air Force base in northern Florida, about 40 miles east of Pensacola.
The crash took place around 9:15am northeast of the base on a training range, and there was no damage to people or property when the jet hit the ground, the Air Force says.
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The sprawling Eglin reservation covers hundreds of thousands of acres across Northwest Florida, USA Today reports.
No explanation was given for the crash.
The pilot was taken to the Eglin base hospital for observation. He was in stable condition in the company of friends and family.
It was not immediately clear whether the crash caused any fire on the ground. Wildfires have consumed hundreds of acres in recent days and remain a threat due to hot, dry and windy conditions.
The F-22 flight was not part of a flyover scheduled Friday morning to honor frontline workers battling the coronavirus outbreak, an Air Force spokesperson tells USA Today.
A F-22 Raptor fighter jet flies at the 2008 Joint Services Open House airshow at Andrews Air Force Base
With the way the Air Force has distributed their remaining F-22s - including those used for training and test planes - this now leaves 17 of the stealth fighter jets as 'backup' planes.
Prior accidents in 2004, 2009 and 2010 destroyed three F-22s, while other jets were taken out of service due to old age of the airframes.
Each F-22 costs about $150million and the overall cost to develop, produce and upgrade the fighter jets was $67billion. The jets were built between the mid-1990s and December 2011.
Defense officials decided not to reorder the Raptors, leaving the Air Force to start acquiring F-15s from Boeing in 2020, after a 16-year break.
F-22s are considered so top secret that all of its cockpit instruments and displays are classified, so no photos of its interior have been confirmed.
Unlike other fighter jets, US officials banned the sale of F-22s to other countries, including allies, in 1998, as a way to prevent the stealth technology from being obtained by Russia and China.
The crashed aircraft and those in a flyover that was to take place Friday – another F-22 along with an F-35 fighter jet and two T-38 training jets – are among aircraft originally assigned to Tyndall Air Force Base, which was left in ruins (pictured) after Hurricane Michael
The second Florida crash happened as a US F-35 stealth bomber suffered millions of dollars in damage after being hit by a bird during take-off from an air base in Japan, according to a the US Marine Corps statement released Wednesday.
'On May 7, 2019 an F-35B with Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing aborted take-off due to a bird strike at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni and safely taxied off the runway,' the statement said.
The pilot was not hurt in the incident, it said.
A damage assessment report has not yet been completed but the Marine Corps classified the incident as category 'A', meaning the damage bill is expected to exceed $2 million.
Last month an F-16 fighter jet operating in the United States was hit by a hawk, the US Air Force told a military-focused website.
Photos of the April 17 incident showed the mangled remains of a bird in the landing gear of the plane.
The F-35 program was launched in the 1990s and has cost almost $400 billion, making it the most expensive weapons system ever developed by the Pentagon.
The defense department plans to build some 2,500 of the warplanes in the decades to come.
The F-35B is a short take-off and landing variant of the plane, developed for the Marine Corps. Each plane costs $115 million to build.
It is a single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft made by Lockheed Martin Corp.
According to the Aviationist, before the Florida crashes, only two F-35s had been lost in accidents.
In April, an F-35A stealth fighter went down off the coast of Japan, sparking a lengthy search by Japanese and American salvage crews.
Some debris was recovered but the pilot's body has not been found and the US Navy announced earlier this month it was calling off the search.
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