In South Korea, the pilot of an F-35A jet fighter made an emergency “belly landing” at an air base on Tuesday (4) after his landing gear failed due to electronic problems, said a South Korean Air Force spokesman.
According to experts, the “belly landing” – touching the ground with the landing gear retracted – was an unprecedented event for the $100 million stealth plane, now in use or ordered by more than a dozen countries .
“The fighter made an emergency landing because the landing gear did not extend. That would mean the jet made a ‘belly landing’,” said a South Korean military official, who could not confirm whether the aircraft sustained any damage in the incident.
Even though he suffered, excellent flying skills were demonstrated by the pilot, who authorities say walked away after landing, according to a South Korean military official.
“A landing like this in the F-35 can be quite difficult and dangerous because of the angle of attack the aircraft has as it approaches landing,” said David Cenciotti, former Italian Air Force officer and editor of The Aviationist blog.
“The F-35 lands very fast. It’s not an F-16, 18 or 111,” said Peter Layton, a former Australian air force officer now at the Griffith Asia Institute, referring to older and less sophisticated military aircraft than the F-35.
“I am very surprised that the emergency landing gear descent systems did not work or were not used,” he said.
Layton also expressed surprise that the South Korean pilot did not eject, “but clearly they did the right thing,” he said.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing, South Korean officials said.
F-35 fighter
South Korea received its first US-made F-35 in 2019 as part of an initial order for 40 of the single-engine jets, according to the plane’s maker Lockheed Martin.
Versions of the F-35 are also flown by the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as US allies and partners including Japan, UK, Australia, Italy, Norway, Netherlands and Israel. More countries have orders already placed for the jet.
Tuesday’s incident is the first for a South Korean F-35, but the jets were involved in at least eight other incidents, according to records kept by F-16.net.
The most recent of these was the loss of a British F-35, which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in November. The pilot was safely ejected from that plane.
In May 2020, a pilot safely ejected when a US Air Force F-35 crashed upon landing at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The Air Force attributed the incident to a variety of factors involving the pilot and the plane’s systems.
In April 2019, a Japanese F-35 crashed into the Pacific Ocean north of Japan, killing its pilot. The Japanese military attributed the accident to space disorientation, “a situation in which a pilot cannot correctly sense the position, altitude or movement of an aircraft,” according to the journal Military Medicine.
Lockheed Martin says the F-35 “is the most lethal, survivable and most connected fighter aircraft in the world, giving pilots an edge against any adversary and allowing them to execute their mission and get home safely” .
This content was originally created in English.
original version
Reference: CNN Brasil
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