Stealth F-35 fighter jets were temporarily grounded in the United States and Great Britain due to a malfunction in the airplanes’ escape seats. The malfunction was discovered in April, but only in the last few days was it decided to ground the Air Force, Navy, and Marines planes until the repair is completed, and it is expected that flights will resume next week.
The malfunction is also being tested in three squadrons of F-35 ‘Adir’ aircraft of the Air Force at Nabatim base, but it was defined as a low risk.
Sources told AIR FORCE TIMES and WAR ZONE at the end of the week that the fault may have been local, but there is a belief that it originated in the production line of the planes. A spokesman for the Martin Baker company, which manufactures the escape seats, said that during a routine inspection during maintenance work at the HILL Air Force Base in the state of Utah, an unusual phenomenon was discovered in the cartridges that operate the escape seats. The source of the problem was found and it was fixed.
These cartridges explode and the explosion throws the ejection seat out of the plane in case of abandonment, then a parachute opens and the pilot falls to the ground. Upon examination, it became clear that some of the cartridges were empty without the explosive needed to activate the seat.
The IDF spokesperson said that the Air Force received information about a safety finding in the escape seats, which is assessed as low risk. An instruction was received to carry out tests in the next three months. The Air Force is working in coordination with the American arms and according to the instructions of the director of the global F-35 program JPO.
The US military tested 2,700 cartridges and found three blanks without explosives. Steve Roberts, a spokesman for Martin Baker, added that the company reported the malfunction to the aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
According to him, no malfunction of this type has been reported in the world’s F-35 aircraft fleets, and in the USA the planes will probably return to flying at the beginning of the week. Similar faults were also discovered in the ejection seats of T-38 and T-6 training and training aircraft, and they were also grounded until the tests were completed.
London’s Daily Mail reported that the British Royal Air Force had grounded non-essential flights of Typhoon fighter jets and aerobatic crew planes to check their ejection seats.
Lockheed Martin plans to produce more than 3,000 F-35 aircraft for customers around the world in the coming years, more than 800 of which have already been delivered to various air forces, half of them to the air arms of the US Army.
In response, Lockheed Martin stated that the company works closely with the aircraft program manager and the operators around the world in order to ensure efficient and insured operation of the aircraft. We assist in checking the evacuation chairs as required.