F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
123Michelangelo111528/27/2025, 11:38:42 AM cnn.com ↗
Comments (152)
ChicagoBoy11 · 45m ago
Very different scenario, but flying my puddle jumper one of the first times after getting my license, once I took off from an airport in Connecticut and was about to cross a large body of water, my exhaust temperatures spiked really, really high, essentially indicating the engine was seconds from melting. But it didn't.
So of course I felt it was a sensor issue (especially since it sounded/felt great), but luckily with the equipment on board I managed a call to the flight school, who put me in touch with the mechanic. I circled above an airport as he pulled up the maintenance logs, we discussed what I was seeing, he noted that there had been a report of a sensor issue that had been squawked, so we concluded I should feel safe to fly straight home.
At the time it felt insanely cool to be able to be doing that WHILE flying the plane. While an unfortunate outcome for this particular pilot, as an elite pilot, part of me thinks when this cropped up part of him was like: "ahh right, this is why I'm top dog"
reactordev · 37m ago
This kind of stuff happens all the time. Especially if you ignore a controller instruction. They'll have a number for you.
But really there's a ton of small, unmanned airfields (some in peoples backyards!) that have a number you can call to operate things like the runway papi lights. Call to order a burger to go. Or just call to talk to Fred, the owner, to see how his day was.
As long as you can safely operate the aircraft, in the pattern, there's nothing stopping you from using your cell or your radio or starlink to contact ground. Just always make sure you're in communication with any air traffic controllers operating in that space.
quest88 · 27m ago
As a pilot, your comment sounds like it was from an llm. PAPI is controlled from the radio, not a phone call. Why would you call ground instead of tower if there’s a ground frequency? Order a burger and talk to bob? It sounds like the llm is trying to describe a Unicom frequency and conflating that with contacting an FBO over the radio to arrange transportation, possibly food I suppose too.
reactordev · 19m ago
I take it you never flew VFR over Nebraska corn…
Yes, papi lights are operated by radio. However, not everyone has fancy radios and only has handhelds, their Nokia phone, or their right arm wave…
It’s not all class C+ out there.
I will point out that PAPI lights as part of a PCL system are operated using mic clicks on CTAF radio. These systems are expensive and sometimes you’re landing in a grass field and just need the runway lights so you don’t run into the trees. You can click your mic as many times as you want, you’ll still be in the dark. The only way is to call Phil…
exabrial · 54s ago
I was trying to figure out how hydraulic fluid freezes... later mentioned: water in the lines.
Yikes.
yellow_lead · 1h ago
> Five engineers participated in the call, including a senior software engineer, a flight safety engineer and three specialists in landing gear systems, the report said.
I can't imagine the stress of being on this call as an engineer. It's like a production outage but the consequences are life and death. Of course, the pilot probably felt more stressed.
airstrike · 53m ago
I don't think there was ever a risk of the plane crashing with the pilot still in the cockpit, despite the fact that the headline sort of leads people to that conclusion.
The pilot could eject at any time. Still dangerous, but more of a debugging session to avoid other similar costly in the future than a Hollywood-like "if we don't solve this now the pilot dies"
petertodd · 37m ago
Ejections are pretty rough, and occasionally career or even life ending. So there would be a lot of pressure on the engineers to try to avoid it. Plus, this plane is very expensive. The cost is multiple times the average lifetime earnings of a typical person. It's not entirely wrong to say that they were attempting to save the life's work of multiple people.
codyb · 39m ago
Doesn't ejecting from a plane potentially break bones? I think it's pretty intense. Good on the pilot for doing the debug session
HPsquared · 29m ago
I wonder if the ejection seat has different levels of acceleration depending on the situation.
chasil · 28m ago
I imagine that ejecting at certain phases of these two attempts would not be survivable.
"The pilot then tried two “touch and go” landings, where the plane briefly lands, to try to straighten out the jammed nose gear, the report said."
stuff4ben · 2m ago
Currently on a production promotion outage right now and reading this while we wait for some caches to be purged to see if it fixes things. Not quite the same and consequences here are much less than what those guys had to do. Still sucks either way...
stef25 · 33m ago
Fix this bug in 30 min or we loose a USD200M plane and possibly the pilot. I'll stick to building crud apps :D
el_benhameen · 1h ago
That initial “oh shit” feeling must have been so much worse than for us regular boring engineers. Google’s not gonna save you on that one.
rfoo · 55m ago
For a whim I read this as "us regular boeing engineers" and it was really funny.
chasil · 26m ago
Except they were from Lockheed Martin.
refactor_master · 1h ago
“I vibe coded that part, but all the tests passed”
Rendello · 36m ago
How do you think they wrote the tests? ;)
freefaler · 2h ago
So as a pilot you can't override the software to stop it from "thinking that the plane is on the ground" mode?
Something similar happened recently with A320 when it didn't want to land on an airfield during emergency unless it was flown in a special mode. But F-35 doesn't have that?
seethishat · 55m ago
"On the ground" = WoW sensors. WoW sensors have been around a long time (see link). And, humans probably should not have any say about that. If humans could override WoW, then the landing gear could be deployed or retracted when it should not and cause a lot of damage due to human error.
I know the 737 allows the pilot to override that (force the wheels to raise even if the airplane thinks it's on the ground). I think most airliners do. I can't find a good succinct reference though.
EDIT: Remembered Airbus exists
agos · 28m ago
this makes sense but why is the decision based only on the state of the landing gear? Is it dumb to expect altitude and speed to be considered?
netsharc · 1h ago
> unless it was flown in a special mode.
What fresh hell is that... reboot, jam F8 just as the "Airbus" logo shows up, and then select "Boot in safe mode"?
crote · 43m ago
Airbus is fully fly-by-wire. Without some kind of computer intervention, nothing would be stopping an accidental bang against the flight stick from causing a maneuver violent enough to rip the wings off.
An Airbus can operate in three modes. With Normal Law, the airplane will refuse to do anything which will stop it from flying. This means the pilot cannot stall the airplane, for example: the computer will automatically correct for it.
With Alternate Law the pilot loses most protections, but the plane will still try to protect against self-destruction. The plane no longer protects against being stalled, but it won't let you rip the wings off.
With Direct Law all bets are off. Controls now map one-to-one to control surfaces, the plane will make no attempt to correct you. All kinds of automatic trimming are lost, you are now essentially flying a Cessna again. The upside is that it no longer relies on potentially broken sensors either: raising the gear while on the ground is usually a really stupid idea - until the "is the plane on the ground" sensors break.
So no, a "Boot in safe mode" isn't as strange as it might sound at first glance. It significantly improves safety during day-to-day operations, while still providing a fallback mechanism during emergencies.
megaloblasto · 3m ago
How does a pilot switch between the three modes? Just switches on the dash?
xattt · 53m ago
Fly-by-wire aircraft have changeable “flight laws” that correspond to different levels of computer intervention to mitigate situations incompatible with controlled flight.
Think of it as various stability control modes in a modern car. Likely the aircraft needed to be put in the least restrictive flight law mode as a workaround.
lazide · 5m ago
‘Incompatible with controlled flight’ is my new ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’.
Notably, most drones have similar levels of control. Everything has to go through the IMU of course (nobody is manually going to be managing 4 separate motor controllers at once), but depending on the modes, the type of control is wildly different.
‘Consumer’/‘idiot’ mode - you tell it which direction to go, and how high/low you want it, and it’ll do that safely. Usually with some sort of object detection/avoidance, auto GPS input, so you won’t accidentally wander into something or hit something. Goal is stable, level flight.
‘Sport’ mode - go fast, usually disables all but the most simple collision avoidance. Sometimes even that. Still provides stable, level flight, but you can easily crash it. Usually goes 2-3x faster than ‘idiot’ mode.
‘Attitude’ or ‘acrobatic’ mode - you’re directly commanding the target 3D pitch/yaw, and aggregate power output. No provision is given to automatically maintaining level flight (won’t auto level), generally no regard is given to airframe integrity, collision avoidance, or engine life, and boy is it fun.
It’s really common to crash in this mode, because people are also doing flips, acrobatic maneuvers, running courses, etc.
Drones in even ‘sport’ mode can’t do flips because it’s fundamentally at odds with auto maintaining level flight, etc.
m000 · 2h ago
This is wild. You can't get away from these zoom calls even as an F-35 pilot.
whatsupdog · 57m ago
I think the call was only 10 minutes long. For 40 minutes the pilot was just waiting for the next available representative.
slipperydippery · 39m ago
40 minutes realizing they need to update Zoom, updating Zoom, then trying to figure out why their mic isn't working.
notjustanymike · 33m ago
First he had to wait for the other engineers to update product on their Jira tickets.
mbirth · 2h ago
I bet, once the gear malfunctioned, Clippy popped up on the screen and suggested to call support.
aduty · 2h ago
Hey, all Clippy ever wanted to do was help.
m000 · 1h ago
At least it wasn't Bonzi Buddy telling jokes to lighten up the mood.
Rooster61 · 31m ago
That might explain why the computer thought it was on the ground while it was flying
swader999 · 50m ago
I'd pay a lot of money for a zoom premium version that has a real eject button.
jacquesm · 36m ago
Especially if it connects to the chairs of other participants.
swader999 · 35m ago
Randomly
jacquesm · 32m ago
That would give the term 'chatroulette' a totally different vibe.
lostmsu · 11m ago
That gave me an idea of 6 person chats that go down to 2 for dating.
cm2187 · 25m ago
I was told there is so much automation on those planes, the pilot does little flying. I always assumed they were kept busy going through their compliance trainings.
tigerBL00D · 1h ago
Am I the only one thinking that it's time for something like an R2D2? Presumably it could get into some crammed spaces and thaw things out of needed. I'm sure it's a stupid idea, BTW, but a fun one )
FatalLogic · 15m ago
It's a fun idea. Though it would have to be a really small R2-D2 that could work from the inside.
The fictional R2-D2 had a big advantage of being in vacuum so it could work from the outside, without disturbing the airflow, and without having its work disturbed by the airflow.
Envisage what happens at 900km/h in atmosphere, if R2-D2 tries to lift up an exterior wing panel to troubleshoot a blocked line?
marcosdumay · 15m ago
Well... aircraft maintenance doesn't work like that.
Even car maintenance doesn't work like that anymore. There's almost nothing you can do just by crawling around and messing with the parts there.
Molitor5901 · 2h ago
Considering they relieved a pilot of command for ejecting when his F-35 become unresponsive, now they make them sit on conference calls. That pilot is very brave, I think others would have ejected by now. Making them fly around up there is ridiculous.
Aurornis · 47m ago
> That pilot is very brave, I think others would have ejected by now. Making them fly around up there is ridiculous.
Definitely not. Ejecting is very risky. If the plane is possibly fixable you would much rather spend the time trying to calmly debug it to get it back to a point where you can land, rather than risk the possibly career ending physical injuries that can come from ejecting.
You also want to maneuver the plane into an area where it’s safer to crash.
The eject button isn’t the safe way out of every situation.
The other pilot situation you brought up isn’t so simple, either. A pilot who panic ejects before attempting to properly evaluate the situation is a risk not only to themselves but to people on the ground. Flying one of these planes is an extremely rare privilege reserved for a select few who have demonstrated their abilities and judgment to an extreme degree. It’s not a job for life and they can’t risk having someone who has demonstrated panicky judgment occupying one of the few spots that could be filled by a long line of very competent candidates.
5f3cfa1a · 59m ago
Ejecting from an airplane is no joke: 18g of force leaves 20-30% with spinal fractures, and ejection seats have an 8% mortality rate[1]
It seems to me that continuing flight with inoperative/damaged landing gear while you discuss alternatives with engineers is the safest option. Burn fuel, make a plan, let people on the ground mobilize to help, and eject when you've tried what you can and it truly becomes the safest option.
It makes you wonder if it would be possible for ejection seats to have a safer bailout mode. Sure, the "compress your spine" mode is definitely appropriate during a wartime situation where someone has shot your wings off, but is it really required when a mechanical failure leaves you unable to land yet in a more-or-less stable flight at a reasonably low speed? Perhaps a 6g ejection might be more appropriate in those cases?
lazide · 2m ago
Did you watch the latest Tom Cruise mission impossible movie? Unless you want to be the bad guy at the end, you need to be very clear of the aircraft if you’re ejecting. For a fighter aircraft, that necessarily requires very violent forces.
It’s a major concern with skydiving too - there are many aircraft it’s impossible to safely exit in flight without impacting some part of the airframe.
Aurornis · 18m ago
The ejection force is to ensure the pilot clears the airplane as they enter the airstream. Think about how much force you feel when you hold your hand out a car window at 60MPH, then remember that wind resistance increases with the square of speed. You have to be launched hard to get away from the tail.
Also the last thing you want in the critical emergency safety gear is more levels of complexity and additional things for the pilot to consider.
prmoustache · 19m ago
Did you see how the plane went down in the video? It is like he just had shutted down completely and was in free fall. Better eject fast when you have no idea in which angle and how fast the plane is about to fall.
the__alchemist · 21m ago
I wonder about that. Maybe the added complexity is a con? I.e. the default would still be full force, but a controlled ejection mode could be gentler, but still capable of clearing the aircraft reliably in straight/level flight.
HPsquared · 27m ago
Maybe they want it to be a bit injurious so people only do it as a last resort.
jajko · 38m ago
Any military pilot has what, 2 or max 3 ejections even in best case scenario before they have to be retired due to medical reasons? If given army lets them actually fly another one.
Its the last resort, lesser of 2 evils situation, not some cool trick hollywood may make you believe.
RankingMember · 52m ago
Upon first reading the headline I was thinking it was some sort of test flight. Nope, poor guy was just trying to fly and ended up forced into a high-stakes troubleshooting tree while on a conference call, as if there's not enough on your mind in a fighter cockpit.
I don't know how many human-manned gens of aircraft are left, but my first inclination is to think a remote-control fallback option wouldn't be out of line here if the security could be done right.
lazide · 1m ago
Honestly, an override switch was all they needed. The problem is they went all digital and didn’t have one.
svieira · 27m ago
> But those attempts failed to recenter the nose wheel and resulted in both the left and right main landing gears freezing up and not being able to extend fully to attempt an actual landing.
> At that point, the F-35’s sensors indicated it was on the ground and the jet’s computer systems transitioned to “automated ground-operation mode,” the report said.
And there wasn't a way to override that? I get that "manual mode" may not be a thing for a SaaS product that isn't critical, but there not being an immediate way to turn off the "drive mode" is quite surprising.
gchadwick · 16m ago
Potentially it happened so quickly the pilot had no way to respond before they lost control of the aircraft and had to hit the eject?
Still you'd hope transitions between major operation modes could have some manual confirmation. Is there some essential reason the aircraft has to automatically transition to 'automated ground operation mode' when it thinks landing is complete? Could you not just expect the pilot to punch a button to do it instead?
jakubmazanec · 17m ago
> if the conference call participants had referenced the 2024 maintenance newsletter, “they likely would have advised a planned full stop landing or a controlled ejection instead of a second touch-and-go” that eventually led to the conditions that caused the crash
So nobody remembered to search for and read all available documentation? Useful lesson for every software engineer.
meindnoch · 2h ago
On most meetings, I wish I was sitting in an ejection seat.
jWhick · 31m ago
yeah like fuck this shit i'm ejecting
efitz · 2h ago
F-35 is a boondoggle.
$200M for one fighter plane is insane.
If the USA ever had to go to war with this weapon, a huge number of them would be offline at any given time, and every single airframe loss would cause a huge dent in overall combat power.
I don’t understand why our military and political leaders keep trying to buy ridiculously overpriced Swiss Army knife weapons (lots of flexibility but great at nothing) instead of mass producing combat knives (only good for one thing but great at it and lots of them).
josefresco · 36m ago
The Air Force's F-35A variant has an "average" flyaway cost of $82.5 million for the jet's 15th, 16th and 17th production lots.
The F-35 base model is around $80 million, rising to the highest known price of $109 million per unit for the F-35B vertical takeoff and landing variant.
And then there's this:
"The flyaway cost for the F-15EX Eagle II is approximately $90 million for each aircraft in the program’s second production lot, about $7.5 million more than the newest price for an F-35A"
scottLobster · 32m ago
You sure about that? You should look at the F-35's performance in Israeli hands in their recent strikes on Iran.
haberman · 23m ago
For me, that was a moment when I realized that the received wisdom about military things can be just completely wrong.
I had considered myself to be reasonably informed about the F-35, and how "everyone knows" it's a boondoggle. I think this started with a long-form article I read in 2013, "How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane": https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-alli...
Fast forward to this year, when Israel's F-35s operated over Iran with total impunity. Not a single plane lost AFAIK.
HPsquared · 24m ago
Now they've made a lot of them, the cost per unit is actually kinda reasonable as these things go. Still way way more than drones though.
jWhick · 33m ago
I'm wondering why these days, when my washing machine has an internet connection, they can't take over control of a plane remotely. I guess it could be considered a security vulnerability, however i'm quite sure it could be done securely.
Like let the pilot eject and you try to land a plane with remote control
1718627440 · 3m ago
When the plane's software misbehaves due to broken sensors and you only now that, because there are human eyes up there, remote control isn't going to improve the situation.
MBCook · 28m ago
The article said the plane had become uncontrollable and that’s why the pilot had to eject.
So even if remote control was possible I’m not sure it would’ve done any good.
Of course I also don’t know why the plane would be allowed to think that it’s in ground mode when it’s 100s of feet or more in the air. Or why the hydraulic fluid was 1/3 water.
hypeatei · 18m ago
That would require even more R&D to maybe be useful in a rare situation. Like you mentioned, the vulnerability surface would increase. The last you thing you'd want is a remote control vuln being discovered in your $200M jet during a conflict.
That and I'm not sure what an ejection actually means for the planes internals i.e. is it even guaranteed the electronic components won't be damaged?
Aurornis · 16m ago
Going from “I can check my washing machine remotely” to “it should be easy to remotely control fighter jets without any security risks” is quite a leap.
Anyway it’s missing the point. If the pilot can’t adequately control the airplane then a remote operator isn’t going to have a better experience.
shrubble · 43m ago
If a third of the hydraulic fluid was water, it was like that meme video of the woman who added washer fluid to the car’s oil - no way was that going to work properly.
estearum · 1m ago
I'm surprised no one is mentioning this, and the fact the article says this is the second of such incidents...
I don't know if this is what actually happened, but it would appear to be a very effective method of sabotage... Simply putting some water in the hydraulic fluid container destined for an F35 is an extremely high risk-adjusted ROI for any saboteurs.
scrlk · 30m ago
"I ejected from my F35 and all I got was this lousy tie"
> "they likely would have advised a planned full stop landing or a controlled ejection instead of a second touch-and-go"
Is that not what the pilot did anyway? Or is a "controlled ejection" different from what they did?
fabian2k · 2h ago
The article mentioned that the aircraft become uncontrollable once it thought it was on the ground and switched control modes. And then the pilot ejected.
I assume a controlled ejection would have been during controlled flight at a time and location specifically chosen. This ejection was necessary because the plane was uncontrollable in the end.
voidUpdate · 2h ago
Ah, I see, ejection in a controlled situation instead of "oh no, time to go now"
lentil_soup · 2h ago
If I understood correctly, the ejection came after the second touch and go made the plane go into landed mode which made it impossible to fly anymore
the_real_cher · 2h ago
I had the exact same thought.
greatgib · 2h ago
[flagged]
beezle · 46m ago
The Vermont Air Guard has flown a contingent of 20 F-35s since 2020 without (so far) incident. https://www.158fw.ang.af.mil/
tokai · 2h ago
Not when the Danish Airforce use F35s.
louthy · 2h ago
Which still makes Greenland safe. If neither side can get off the ground or convince their planes that they're in the air.
tokai · 38m ago
You understand that the Danish Airforce is Greenland's Airforce right? The Danish military is the official military of Greenland with an explicit agreement between the home rule parliament and the Danish Defence. Other than that all Greenlanders are danish citizens and are the danish state is obligated to defend them.
nicce · 33m ago
I guess the point was that planes are similarly useless/useful in both sides.
nicce · 2h ago
Or Finland…
Temporary_31337 · 2h ago
US can (effectively) shut down F35s remote.y
rokkamokka · 2h ago
A scary proposition considering what the US is rapidly becoming
greenavocado · 1h ago
Purchasing F35s is paying tribute to the empire so it doesn't come down on you harder with tariffs and compliance burdens. It's not meant to actually be useful.
guappa · 1h ago
Yeah and the tariffs are still there anyway so I don't understand why we aren't following suite and cancelling those orders.
nicce · 1m ago
Finland just joined NATO, which means that they lost their neutrality and independency for foreign politics. It is now very difficult to do something completely different or unfrienly than the U.S. because of the one country with shared border.
RankingMember · 48m ago
Yep, anyone paying billions in what is effectively tribute to this admin is only playing themselves considering the stable genius seems to flip the game board every 5 minutes.
vintermann · 11m ago
They're betting on things going "back to normal" eventually. They have neither the imagination or courage to think otherwise.
If it does, the new president/ruling party will probably look favorably on those who respected the crown even when they hated the guy who wore it. Because that's how the normal is.
ahmeneeroe-v2 · 50m ago
You don't have the leverage you think you have.
owebmaster · 1h ago
It still did not work, tho.
greenavocado · 40m ago
It did, they could have ended up like the Swiss
the_real_cher · 2h ago
The US is the most powerful 3 season military in the world.
deadbabe · 2h ago
Now it makes sense why the US doesn’t care about climate change, winter is their weakness.
HPsquared · 26m ago
Russia also would probably like the Arctic to unfreeze a bit. (Ports, navigation etc)
pengaru · 17m ago
> The report notes Lockheed Martin had issued guidance on the problem the F-35’s
> sensors had in extreme cold weather in a maintenance newsletter in April 2024,
> about nine months before the crash. The problem could make it “difficult for
> the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft,” the guidance said.
>
> The temperature at the time of the crash was -1 degree Fahrenheit, the report
> said.
Isn't it pretty much always at least that cold at the altitudes these things operate at? It's unclear from the article if -1F qualifies as "extreme cold weather" but unless I'm mistaken you're going to encounter extreme cold temps up there - it's not some exceptional condition.
preisschild · 2h ago
But why was there water in the hydraulic system in the first place?
grumpy-de-sre · 2h ago
Likely contamination of ground handling equipment [1]. Unfortunately can happen. I wonder if the hydraulic fluid is hygroscopic or something?
Thanks for the link. This is much more useful than the news article.
4gotunameagain · 2h ago
Hydraulic brake fluid is glycol ether based and hygroscopic. Planes usually use mineral based fluids which are not, but heck if I know what the F-35 uses.
grumpy-de-sre · 2h ago
Quoting ChatGPT (and after a quick sanity check),
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter uses a specialized hydraulic fluid that’s based on a synthetic ester formulation, not a petroleum-based fluid.
Specifically, it uses phosphate ester–based fire-resistant hydraulic fluid (commonly in the MIL-PRF-83282 or newer MIL-PRF-87257 class).
Apparently the older phosphate-ester based hydraulic fluids were hygroscopic but I'm not sure if the newer variants are.
"The major uses of TBP in industry are as a component of aircraft hydraulic fluid, brake fluid, and as a solvent for extraction and purification of rare-earth metals from their ores"
It might be better if it is hygroscopic as the water won't separate and risk forming ice plugs in the hydraulic lines.
yobbo · 2h ago
It could be condensation in expansion tanks, or it could be rain into open containers on the ground, or someone could have mistakenly poured cooling liquid (or something else) into the containers, or into the hydraulic system itself, or ...
4gotunameagain · 2h ago
Because US$40 billion was apparently not enough to avoid problems that did not affect cold war era airplanes.
Maybe everything was colder back then so they took it into account ? Dunno.
MobiusHorizons · 35m ago
Cold War era planes also had a lot of problems. The YouTube channel “not a pound for air to ground” has some great content about planes from that era, and reliability was sometimes absurdly poor.
I don't get the joke. Did he pee himself, or the pit stop crew member is being useless?
Giorgi · 2h ago
Article reads like they are still blaming pilot, like what else he/she was supposed to do?!
kotaKat · 1h ago
> It said if the conference call participants had referenced the 2024 maintenance newsletter, “they likely would have advised a planned full stop landing or a controlled ejection instead of a second touch-and-go” that eventually led to the conditions that caused the crash, the report said.
I guess the engineers on the call didn’t get the memo about those pesky TPS reports.
upofadown · 1h ago
Always blame the user...
No downside if you are wrong. The people who actually run complex systems have no political power. If you get away with it then you might be able to avoid expensive changes.
sschueller · 2h ago
Switzerland, if they want something they can fly for air policing is forced to buy the F35 at what every price the US feels fit (even though the contract with Lockheed states a fixed price, naive politicians and consultants found out the hard way). Of course the CHF to USD conversion is fix at a shit rate from many years ago and from what I understand there is no way around that because the SNB did the conversion back then already.
We have no alternative we can get before 2035. They are talking about extending the F/A-18 but since we would be the only ones still using them we would have to pay for that too at who know what price.
The public approved 6 billion and now it looks like it will be way more, excluding skyrocketing maintenance which is not included and a patriot missile system that when it is finally delivered will cost who knows how many billions.
The whole thing is an absolute shit show here and that's ignoring the technical issues this thing has...
orwin · 1h ago
With such a terrain, I would guess that agility and the ability to land on highway of in fields without burning all avionics and electronics would have been rated higher than stealth, but it wasn't. Still, the Swiss were offered a fairly low price, and promised low operating costs, and that's the main reason they didn't choose the Eurofighter (which isn't a multi-purpose jet but an interceptor)
stripe_away · 1h ago
JAS 39 Gripen can land on roads. Might have been a better choice.
UltraSane · 58m ago
Israel's attack on Iran using the F-35 proves it is a very effective, if expensive, weapon.
jajko · 25m ago
Only if US lets you use it, and given constant instability current government shows, next generation of fighters won't be bought from US.
Better to have something even worse on paper that can actually fly and lock targets than an expensive paperweight.
panki27 · 1h ago
Not your average end user call for support...
cyclecount · 52m ago
These planes are huge pieces of shit. No country should be spending money buying these from the US / Lockheed Martin.
M3L0NM4N · 37m ago
What should they be buying instead? The other available multi-role fighters that would all get blown to pieces by an F-35 before they knew what hit them?
nialv7 · 45m ago
Is it just me or the title made it seemed like the conference call was the cause of the crash?
gherkinnn · 2h ago
The F35 has been a shit show for 15 years or more. So not only is it a disaster at the tactical and operational level, with the US holding the keys and being run by a cretin, it is now also a strategic blunder.
The French were right with their strategic autonomy, de Gaulle evidently prescient, and the various EU countries falling for the F35 would have been better off choosing the Rafale or Gripen.
etempleton · 1h ago
The F35 program had a ton of issues and was expensive, but so was the B2 program. Sometimes something good comes out of a difficult process. They have made a lot of F35s now and exported many of them with many many more on order. At this point I think it is fair to say the F35 is a successful platform.
UltraSane · 57m ago
Ask Iran how much of a shit show the F35 is.
gnaman · 25m ago
Iran has been crippled with sanctions limiting their ability to develop/buy any kind of fighter aircraft. Shooting from the air in Iran equals fighting a bot in an FPS game. They don't shoot back
luma · 2h ago
That is a patently absurd take, ask Iran how much of a shitshow it is to be on the receiving end of planes your AA can't see.
gherkinnn · 1h ago
The B2 is what did the damage in Iran. F22 and F35 were reportedly sent to protect the bombers.
I don't see how that detracts from the point that the F35 has been fraught with problems and operating it is dependent on an unreliably ally.
hollerith · 1h ago
Israel has no B2s. Israeli F35s flew constantly over Western and Central Iran (including Tehran) for 12 days as if Iran's extensive air-defense network was not even there, doing a lot of damage.
Russian milbloggers responded with, "Why can't the Russian air force fly over Ukraine like that?"
UltraSane · 56m ago
This is completely wrong. B2 bombers only dropped the MOAB on the nuclear enrichment sites. Israel used F35s to bomb Iran at will. Iran didn't shoot down a single plane.
mytailorisrich · 1h ago
The F-35 is unstable by design and requires constant adjustments by the computer system to fly. So it is actually impossible to "just" turn the computer off and fly manually.
ahmeneeroe-v2 · 46m ago
This is true for basically every fighter jet and stealth aircraft
mytailorisrich · 14m ago
"Modern" jet fighters, yes. I believe it started to be "hard" to fly manually with the F-16 and now it is completely impossible, but feel free to correct me.
stoltzmann · 2m ago
F-16 was the first inherently unstable jet fighter, and the first one that featured a full fly-by-wire system with no backup. If you want a jet that is completely impossible to fly without a computer, F-16 is already one of them - there is nothing special with the F-35 about that.
oldpersonintx2 · 48m ago
been the case since the F16, which was the first to have such a characteristic
MaxPock · 2h ago
Who eats the loss under such circumstances?
Government or Lockheed Martin or are these 200 million dollar jets insured ?
zrail · 2h ago
Ultimately the US taxpayers will eat the loss in either case. If the government tried to charge it back to Lockheed Martin they'd just raise the price on subsequent programs to compensate.
The government does insure weapons of war. Who would write the policy?
bedane · 2h ago
is insurance for military equipment a thing? I had no idea.
If you have very deep pockets like a nation has, why not simply replace the lost hardware and never insure/pay premiums(which would be calculated to net a profit to the insurer)?
varispeed · 2h ago
Usually wars, vis major are exceptions in insurance policies.
analog31 · 54m ago
... as is farce majeur.
gdbsjjdn · 1h ago
Don't worry, the US military will recoup the loss by extorting some more natural resources from Ukraine and building some sea-side condos in Gaza.
nelox · 2h ago
Self-insured. The government absorbs losses itself instead of purchasing commercial insurance.
meindnoch · 2h ago
Where did they get this 200million figure from? Sounds bogus.
dgacmu · 47m ago
The per plane cost varies a lot depending on what you want to wrap in it: how much of the development costs you amortize, the modernization program, etc. but $200m is in the range.
("Total acquisition costs" vs the marginal cost of the next plane can result in a more than 2x difference in how much you think the plane costs)
The flyaway cost of buying one more plane is probably a bit under $100m though.
josefresco · 33m ago
> The flyaway cost of buying one more plane is probably a bit under $100m though.
F-14D unit cost was ~$74 million in 1988. Adjusting for inflation that's ~$202 million in 2025. It's not that unreasonable for an American fighter jet, honestly.
the_real_cher · 2h ago
The government issues bonds to pay for this and the federal reserve prints money to buy the bonds.
Its FREE money!!!
harshreality · 1h ago
The view that GP seems to subscribe to is that, when you insure something and need to make a claim on that policy, the insurance money is free.
That's not any more true.
MerrimanInd · 26m ago
And shockingly one of the engineers on the call still complained to their coworker later that day "that meeting could have been an email".
So of course I felt it was a sensor issue (especially since it sounded/felt great), but luckily with the equipment on board I managed a call to the flight school, who put me in touch with the mechanic. I circled above an airport as he pulled up the maintenance logs, we discussed what I was seeing, he noted that there had been a report of a sensor issue that had been squawked, so we concluded I should feel safe to fly straight home.
At the time it felt insanely cool to be able to be doing that WHILE flying the plane. While an unfortunate outcome for this particular pilot, as an elite pilot, part of me thinks when this cropped up part of him was like: "ahh right, this is why I'm top dog"
But really there's a ton of small, unmanned airfields (some in peoples backyards!) that have a number you can call to operate things like the runway papi lights. Call to order a burger to go. Or just call to talk to Fred, the owner, to see how his day was.
As long as you can safely operate the aircraft, in the pattern, there's nothing stopping you from using your cell or your radio or starlink to contact ground. Just always make sure you're in communication with any air traffic controllers operating in that space.
Yes, papi lights are operated by radio. However, not everyone has fancy radios and only has handhelds, their Nokia phone, or their right arm wave…
It’s not all class C+ out there.
I will point out that PAPI lights as part of a PCL system are operated using mic clicks on CTAF radio. These systems are expensive and sometimes you’re landing in a grass field and just need the runway lights so you don’t run into the trees. You can click your mic as many times as you want, you’ll still be in the dark. The only way is to call Phil…
Yikes.
I can't imagine the stress of being on this call as an engineer. It's like a production outage but the consequences are life and death. Of course, the pilot probably felt more stressed.
The pilot could eject at any time. Still dangerous, but more of a debugging session to avoid other similar costly in the future than a Hollywood-like "if we don't solve this now the pilot dies"
"The pilot then tried two “touch and go” landings, where the plane briefly lands, to try to straighten out the jammed nose gear, the report said."
Something similar happened recently with A320 when it didn't want to land on an airfield during emergency unless it was flown in a special mode. But F-35 doesn't have that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACARS
EDIT: Remembered Airbus exists
What fresh hell is that... reboot, jam F8 just as the "Airbus" logo shows up, and then select "Boot in safe mode"?
An Airbus can operate in three modes. With Normal Law, the airplane will refuse to do anything which will stop it from flying. This means the pilot cannot stall the airplane, for example: the computer will automatically correct for it.
With Alternate Law the pilot loses most protections, but the plane will still try to protect against self-destruction. The plane no longer protects against being stalled, but it won't let you rip the wings off.
With Direct Law all bets are off. Controls now map one-to-one to control surfaces, the plane will make no attempt to correct you. All kinds of automatic trimming are lost, you are now essentially flying a Cessna again. The upside is that it no longer relies on potentially broken sensors either: raising the gear while on the ground is usually a really stupid idea - until the "is the plane on the ground" sensors break.
So no, a "Boot in safe mode" isn't as strange as it might sound at first glance. It significantly improves safety during day-to-day operations, while still providing a fallback mechanism during emergencies.
Think of it as various stability control modes in a modern car. Likely the aircraft needed to be put in the least restrictive flight law mode as a workaround.
Notably, most drones have similar levels of control. Everything has to go through the IMU of course (nobody is manually going to be managing 4 separate motor controllers at once), but depending on the modes, the type of control is wildly different.
‘Consumer’/‘idiot’ mode - you tell it which direction to go, and how high/low you want it, and it’ll do that safely. Usually with some sort of object detection/avoidance, auto GPS input, so you won’t accidentally wander into something or hit something. Goal is stable, level flight.
‘Sport’ mode - go fast, usually disables all but the most simple collision avoidance. Sometimes even that. Still provides stable, level flight, but you can easily crash it. Usually goes 2-3x faster than ‘idiot’ mode.
‘Attitude’ or ‘acrobatic’ mode - you’re directly commanding the target 3D pitch/yaw, and aggregate power output. No provision is given to automatically maintaining level flight (won’t auto level), generally no regard is given to airframe integrity, collision avoidance, or engine life, and boy is it fun.
It’s really common to crash in this mode, because people are also doing flips, acrobatic maneuvers, running courses, etc.
Drones in even ‘sport’ mode can’t do flips because it’s fundamentally at odds with auto maintaining level flight, etc.
The fictional R2-D2 had a big advantage of being in vacuum so it could work from the outside, without disturbing the airflow, and without having its work disturbed by the airflow.
Envisage what happens at 900km/h in atmosphere, if R2-D2 tries to lift up an exterior wing panel to troubleshoot a blocked line?
Even car maintenance doesn't work like that anymore. There's almost nothing you can do just by crawling around and messing with the parts there.
Definitely not. Ejecting is very risky. If the plane is possibly fixable you would much rather spend the time trying to calmly debug it to get it back to a point where you can land, rather than risk the possibly career ending physical injuries that can come from ejecting.
You also want to maneuver the plane into an area where it’s safer to crash.
The eject button isn’t the safe way out of every situation.
The other pilot situation you brought up isn’t so simple, either. A pilot who panic ejects before attempting to properly evaluate the situation is a risk not only to themselves but to people on the ground. Flying one of these planes is an extremely rare privilege reserved for a select few who have demonstrated their abilities and judgment to an extreme degree. It’s not a job for life and they can’t risk having someone who has demonstrated panicky judgment occupying one of the few spots that could be filled by a long line of very competent candidates.
It seems to me that continuing flight with inoperative/damaged landing gear while you discuss alternatives with engineers is the safest option. Burn fuel, make a plan, let people on the ground mobilize to help, and eject when you've tried what you can and it truly becomes the safest option.
[1]: https://sites.nd.edu/biomechanics-in-the-wild/2021/04/06/top...
It’s a major concern with skydiving too - there are many aircraft it’s impossible to safely exit in flight without impacting some part of the airframe.
Also the last thing you want in the critical emergency safety gear is more levels of complexity and additional things for the pilot to consider.
Its the last resort, lesser of 2 evils situation, not some cool trick hollywood may make you believe.
I don't know how many human-manned gens of aircraft are left, but my first inclination is to think a remote-control fallback option wouldn't be out of line here if the security could be done right.
> At that point, the F-35’s sensors indicated it was on the ground and the jet’s computer systems transitioned to “automated ground-operation mode,” the report said.
And there wasn't a way to override that? I get that "manual mode" may not be a thing for a SaaS product that isn't critical, but there not being an immediate way to turn off the "drive mode" is quite surprising.
Still you'd hope transitions between major operation modes could have some manual confirmation. Is there some essential reason the aircraft has to automatically transition to 'automated ground operation mode' when it thinks landing is complete? Could you not just expect the pilot to punch a button to do it instead?
So nobody remembered to search for and read all available documentation? Useful lesson for every software engineer.
$200M for one fighter plane is insane.
If the USA ever had to go to war with this weapon, a huge number of them would be offline at any given time, and every single airframe loss would cause a huge dent in overall combat power.
I don’t understand why our military and political leaders keep trying to buy ridiculously overpriced Swiss Army knife weapons (lots of flexibility but great at nothing) instead of mass producing combat knives (only good for one thing but great at it and lots of them).
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/10/newest-f-35-f-15ex-contr...
The F-35 base model is around $80 million, rising to the highest known price of $109 million per unit for the F-35B vertical takeoff and landing variant.
And then there's this:
"The flyaway cost for the F-15EX Eagle II is approximately $90 million for each aircraft in the program’s second production lot, about $7.5 million more than the newest price for an F-35A"
I had considered myself to be reasonably informed about the F-35, and how "everyone knows" it's a boondoggle. I think this started with a long-form article I read in 2013, "How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane": https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-alli...
Here is the HN discussion at the time, full of confident assertions that the F-35 is useless: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6211029
Fast forward to this year, when Israel's F-35s operated over Iran with total impunity. Not a single plane lost AFAIK.
So even if remote control was possible I’m not sure it would’ve done any good.
Of course I also don’t know why the plane would be allowed to think that it’s in ground mode when it’s 100s of feet or more in the air. Or why the hydraulic fluid was 1/3 water.
That and I'm not sure what an ejection actually means for the planes internals i.e. is it even guaranteed the electronic components won't be damaged?
Anyway it’s missing the point. If the pilot can’t adequately control the airplane then a remote operator isn’t going to have a better experience.
I don't know if this is what actually happened, but it would appear to be a very effective method of sabotage... Simply putting some water in the hydraulic fluid container destined for an F35 is an extremely high risk-adjusted ROI for any saboteurs.
https://martin-baker.com/tie-club/
Is that not what the pilot did anyway? Or is a "controlled ejection" different from what they did?
I assume a controlled ejection would have been during controlled flight at a time and location specifically chosen. This ejection was necessary because the plane was uncontrollable in the end.
If it does, the new president/ruling party will probably look favorably on those who respected the crown even when they hated the guy who wore it. Because that's how the normal is.
1. https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter uses a specialized hydraulic fluid that’s based on a synthetic ester formulation, not a petroleum-based fluid.
Specifically, it uses phosphate ester–based fire-resistant hydraulic fluid (commonly in the MIL-PRF-83282 or newer MIL-PRF-87257 class).
Apparently the older phosphate-ester based hydraulic fluids were hygroscopic but I'm not sure if the newer variants are.
Maybe this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tributyl_phosphate
"The major uses of TBP in industry are as a component of aircraft hydraulic fluid, brake fluid, and as a solvent for extraction and purification of rare-earth metals from their ores"
It might be better if it is hygroscopic as the water won't separate and risk forming ice plugs in the hydraulic lines.
Maybe everything was colder back then so they took it into account ? Dunno.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nCoxNLdUSaE
I guess the engineers on the call didn’t get the memo about those pesky TPS reports.
No downside if you are wrong. The people who actually run complex systems have no political power. If you get away with it then you might be able to avoid expensive changes.
We have no alternative we can get before 2035. They are talking about extending the F/A-18 but since we would be the only ones still using them we would have to pay for that too at who know what price.
The public approved 6 billion and now it looks like it will be way more, excluding skyrocketing maintenance which is not included and a patriot missile system that when it is finally delivered will cost who knows how many billions.
The whole thing is an absolute shit show here and that's ignoring the technical issues this thing has...
Better to have something even worse on paper that can actually fly and lock targets than an expensive paperweight.
The French were right with their strategic autonomy, de Gaulle evidently prescient, and the various EU countries falling for the F35 would have been better off choosing the Rafale or Gripen.
I don't see how that detracts from the point that the F35 has been fraught with problems and operating it is dependent on an unreliably ally.
Russian milbloggers responded with, "Why can't the Russian air force fly over Ukraine like that?"
Government or Lockheed Martin or are these 200 million dollar jets insured ?
The government does insure weapons of war. Who would write the policy?
If you have very deep pockets like a nation has, why not simply replace the lost hardware and never insure/pay premiums(which would be calculated to net a profit to the insurer)?
("Total acquisition costs" vs the marginal cost of the next plane can result in a more than 2x difference in how much you think the plane costs)
The flyaway cost of buying one more plane is probably a bit under $100m though.
$82.5 million https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45039618
Its FREE money!!!
That's not any more true.
/s