An F-35B V/STOL fighter crashed on the Lockheed Martin runway in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday. The aircraft was performing a vertical landing when practically on the ground, it raised its tail again.
Due to the loss of control, the pilot ejected a few meters from the ground and his physical condition was not disclosed. The crash was recorded by an observer and posted to the Houston Air Watch Twitter account. See below.
F-35 crash-lands in Fort Worth, TX – pilot ejected 🇺🇸 #aviation pic.twitter.com/Ov7qXf0xad
— Houston Air Watch (@houstonairw) December 15, 2022
The F-35 fighter is manufactured in Fort Worth, in the old facility where the F-16 Fighting Falcon was produced. The F-35B version is operated by the US Marines and the UK, but has orders from other nations such as Japan and Italy.
It is equipped with a complex propulsion system capable of allowing short or vertical takeoffs and landings.
The accident is one more to join an extensive list of the 5th generation jet, which has impressed by this type of problem. In the last 12 months, three aircraft were lost: a Royal Air Force F-35B, a US Air Force F-35A and a US Navy F-35C, which crashed in the South China Sea.
