Watch Pilot Eject From Stealth Jet AFTER Crash Landing

Daily Caller ^ | MELANIE WILCOX CONTRIBUTOR - December 15, 2022 6:41 PM ET

[Red Badger]

A pilot ejected from a Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II fighter jet Thursday morning at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas, during a botched landing.

“We are aware of the F-35B crash on the shared runway at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth,” a Lockheed spokesman said, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Safety is our priority, and we will follow appropriate investigation protocol.”

VIDEO AT LINK...............

The video of the incident shows the F-35B hovering, then touching down, then elevating again, and tipping forward. Its wheels seem to collapse underneath the aircraft and damage the front of the plane. After the plane spun 180 degrees and back, the pilot ejected.

The Defense Department and Lockheed Martin contacted White Settlement police at about 10:15 a.m., the Star-Telegram reported. Police said there were no fire reports. The pilot “landed apparently without injury,” according to CBS DFW.

The Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth is next to the military base, where the company tests the F-35. The Marine Corps operates the F-35B and can take off in a short distance and land like a helicopter, the outlet reported.

[mylife]

ejection

[natalie227]

“A fellow F-14 pilot would later say that “the treatment [Hultgreen] received after her death has always stayed with me as one of the greatest injustices witnessed during my naval career,” and that her squadron’s executive officer crashed in a flight simulator 97 percent of the time when faced with similar problems (as Hultgreen).[14]

[Yo-Yo]

Here's the same video that has been zoomed into a bit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVyfGV0csD0

Watching it a few more times, it looks like there are a couple of puffs of white smoke that come out of the back of the aircraft just before the first touchdown. Remember, at this point the exhaust nozzle of the engine is pointed down, so any puffs of smoke are coming from inside the engine bay area.

Those couple of puffs of white smoke could be the beginnings of the driveshaft or clutch feeding power to the forward lift fan failing, and may be why the first touchdown was more of a bounce than it should have been.

Clearly, after the bounce, the aircraft noses in and is propped up on its side by the right main gear and right wingtip, with the engine nozzle pointing to the left, causing the counterclockwise spin.

As the main engine spooled down, the forward lift fan, still spinning through inertia, provided a brief clockwise spin.

Once both spins were neutralized, the aircraft settled on its main gear and the pilot decided to exit the scene of the accident.

Since it was still a Lockheed Martin aircraft (it wasn't yet delivered to the USMC,) we may never see the final accident report.

[DesertRhino]

And the engine was screaming the whole time after touchdown. Didn’t look like the pilot ever pulled power. Weird looking event with the flying moonpig.

[DesertRhino]

Although air combat maneuvering is heavily taxing on the upper body. Bearing in mind that the F-35 is weak in the maneuvering department.

[Delta 21]

That was a very nice bounce till it all went to hell.

[Myrddin]

I lived in San Diego during the F-14 era. My scout troop was on the tarmac when the very first F-14 landed with the Secretary of Defense in the RIO seat. The F-14 has always been one of my favorite aircraft. One of my ham buddies, N7PF (Pete Firos) was a RIO. In 1983, I moved to Mira Mesa. My house was 1 mile north of the Miramar runway. Seeing the Topgun training in the air was awesome from that location.

Cara's crash was a huge shock. The debrief that I posted is the first time I've seen the the full break down of how it occurred.

As an aside, the software used at Topgun for doing the dogfight debriefs (as seen in the first Topgun movie) was produced by my co-workers. I was team lead for a new generation of that software that could run on a laptop with an i7, 16 GB RAM and nVidia GPU. The one used for the movie was UNIX boxes in racks running X-Windows.

Thanks for pointing out that Cara's executive officer failed to recover from the same situation in a simulator 97% of the time. The debrief demonstrated that is was "possible" to recover, but that assumes that the person doing that recovery has lightning fast ability to apply the procedure. When you're in the middle of an "oh shit" moment, you have seconds to do exactly the right thing. The debrief crew had the advantage of a mental rehearsal of the scenario and ability to apply the correction at exactly the right moment. Cara didn't have that mental rehearsal available to apply the precise correction.

[Jewbacca]

It’s not like the bird was going to be anymore totaled.

Just. Get. The. Heck. Away.

You’re sitting on 9,000 kilos of fuel.

[Delta 21]

That thing is spun up fast when its hovering. Just a little too much vector, there Victor. FAIL.

[Yo-Yo]

And the engine was screaming the whole time after touchdown. Didn’t look like the pilot ever pulled power. Weird looking event with the flying moonpig.

While in hover the engine is always at about 90% power, with a little more or little less to ascend or descend.

However, once it hit the tarmac the second time, the engine did spool down but the forward lift fan continued to briefly provide enough thrust to change the direction of the aircraft's pirouette.

But my eye is still drawn to those two puffs of white smoke that came out of the tail just before the first touch and go bounce. That's not normal.

Here's video of a normal F-35B hover, No puffs of white smoke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW28Mb1YvwY

[logi_cal869]

I’m sick of these headlines.

It wasn’t a crash, nor a crash landing.

It was a mishap with the VTOL fan, the single piece of lousy engineering for which I hate this aircraft.

The result was an ejection, fortunately without either loss of pilot nor aircraft.

Labeling it a crash landing is semantics for reports, but hyped for headlines.

[cpdiii]

I noticed a puff of smoke from the turbine about a second before it landed. I wonder if he had an engine failure?

[cpdiii]

I suspect that she just wanted to get away from the plane, not knowing if it would blow due to a fuel leak.

Good guess. I would have punched out.

[pfflier]

Fortunate it didn’t explode

Designed to keep on ticking after taking a licking.

IMO the forward fan shut down while the plane was still in a high thrust mode. The only other reason the plane would do that would be inadvertent control inputs either by the FCS or the pilot. Too soon to know.

[Psalm 73]

"Looking at the aftermath, he probably didn’t need to punch out at all, but hindsight and all..."

My thoughts exactly - so he had a split second to consider the possibility of a ruptured fuel cell/fuel line-induced incineration or a broken leg from a short eject.

I'd choose the broken leg, too.

[Paal Gulli]

The nose gear only came off AFTER the nose of the plane contacted the runway.

Calling that a "crash landing" is more than just a little hyperbolic. The F-35B is carrier-landing capable, and carrier landings aren't meant to be pretty. You don't feel around for the runway, you slam it down with authority. That thing has just one engine but when executing STOVL maneuvers, thrust is directed downwards through two separate ducts, one fore and one aft. If looks to me like something went wonky with the front duct during the "pogo" maneuver.

When the pogo was at apogee the nose dropped abruptly, as if there was insufficient thrust from the forward duct. The nose gear appeared to be performing normally during the second touch-down, right up until the instant that the nose impacted.

This is a screenshot of about half-way between when the nose gear contacted the runway and the nose hit the tarmac. If you watched this in slo-mo, you could see the front strut is compressing like it's supposed to and everything is happening by the book. At 720P, the nose impacts the runway in the same frame that the nose gear begins to noticeably bend backwards. So the nose gear failure was effect, not cause, and for all you can see in this video, it might have failed as the result of structural damage cause by the face plant.

The greater question is, do you qualify for the "Caterpillar Club" if you eject ... while the a/c is on the ground?

[Red Badger]

Give him the pin.......... and some new underwear............

[Yo-Yo]

My thoughts exactly - so he had a split second to consider the possibility of a ruptured fuel cell/fuel line-induced incineration or a broken leg from a short eject.

I'd choose the broken leg, too.

I understand that the real risk to an ejection is compressive spinal damage.

[real saxophonist]

He’ll also get a nice tie from Martin-Baker.

[DesertRhino]

I see it now. Interesting.