F-35B accident at Fort Worth

A Lockheed owned F-35B was making a vertical landing at Fort Worth today, at the Lockheed plant, and came down hard, winding up spinning on one wingtip. The pilot ejected after the aircraft came back upright. Video of the incident shows the aircraft come down, apparently without slowing, and bouncing as it touched the ground. After the bounce, the aircraft suddenly pitches up onto its nose, and falls off onto one wingtip, spinning around several times before coming to a stop.

The worldwide F-35 fleet currently stands at 875 aircraft, and has flown over 600, 000 hours all told. There have been something like 12 accidents, counting ground incidents and crashes.

Video of the accident:

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Article at The Aviationist:

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a reply to: Zaphod58

Looks like pilot error. Pogo'd the landing, 130 million down the drain.

a reply to: H0P114

I suspect that it was an engine problem. The engine on that beast is pretty well controlled normally, but it sounded like there was never a power reduction as he came down. They'll strip the jet and reuse a lot of it, and save quite a bit of money in either the supply chain, or production of another jet.

Weird how it bounced and then took a nosedive.

I used to live right next to that airstrip, back when it was General Dynamics.

a reply to: imitator

I'm betting when he came down harder than expected, the pilot inadvertently pushed forward on the stick. Since the aircraft registered that it was airborne, it tried to do what the pilot told it to do, and go forward.

Pretty impressive it did not catch on fire or explode, awesome plane.. perhaps they should install a vertical auto pilot helper for those sleeping at the wheel.

a reply to: Spacespider

That's why I'm thinking it was an engine, or engine controller problem. The F-35 has a lot of computer assistance built into the VTOL system. They can put it down within a few inches of their aim point on the deck.

Wow not far from here. Crazy.

a reply to: H0P114

It will fly again.

Ground level eject. Hope the pilot is okay

a reply to: dashen

They're reporting the usual trip to the hospital for check up, but he seems to be ok.

According to the Pentagon, the aircraft belonged to Lockheed, as it hadn't been transferred to a customer, but was being flown by a military pilot.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: imitator

I'm betting when he came down harder than expected, the pilot inadvertently pushed forward on the stick. Since the aircraft registered that it was airborne, it tried to do what the pilot told it to do, and go forward.

It's either that or there was some kind of failure of the lift fan. There was definitely a nose pitch down due to more thrust being applied at the back than at the front.

There seemed to be quite a bit of smoke coming from somewhere as it descended. There didn't seem to be a reason to make a drastic correction after the little bounce, the engines may have not been responding properly or just simple pilot error.

a reply to: panoz77

Fly-by-wire can be twitchy. It doesn't take a lot of pressure to input a control movement. Depending on how hard he hit, he could have put a pretty significant input in, without meaning to. The aircraft would have read itself as being airborne, since the weight on wheels switch would show no weight, and translated that to a control movement.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Based on the smoke out of exhaust, I'm betting some kind of engine problem contributed.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: imitator

I'm betting when he came down harder than expected, the pilot inadvertently pushed forward on the stick. Since the aircraft registered that it was airborne, it tried to do what the pilot told it to do, and go forward.

Does the pilot, in a situation like this, face some kind of reprimand?

Not saying he should be punished at all, just curious.

a reply to: VulcanWerks

No. Especially if there was some kind of mechanical failure exacerbating things.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wasted billions for a useless jet.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I did this exact same thing in GTA: San Andreas.