A US F-35 fighter jet crashed on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea on Monday, injuring seven people.
The US Navy’s Pacific Fleet said the crash happened as a result of a “landing mishap,” the cause of which is “under investigation.” The crash happened while the Carl Vinson was conducting drills with the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
The F-35 crash is the second US military mishap to happen in the South China Sea since October when a US submarine collided with an underwater mountain in the disputed waters. The US refused to disclose where the submarine had its accident, angering China.
The Carl Vinson and the Abraham Lincoln enter the South China Sea on Sunday and their presence demonstrated the US commitment to maintaining a regular aircraft carrier presence in the waters. Earlier this month, the Carl Vinson held joint drills with an amphibious group led by the USS Essex, a landing helicopter dock ship.
Last week, The South China Morning Post reported on the increased presence of US aircraft carriers in the disputed waters. In 2021, 10 carrier strike groups entered the South China Sea, compared with six in 2020 and five in 2019.
I suppose there is a very urgent need for US aircraft carriers and other vessels and planes to be in the south China Sea.
The urgent need is to obfuscate just how far the U.S. has fallen behind the cutting edge in all aspects of military technology. North Korea has more successful hypersonic flights than the U.S. Maybe the greedy contractors are not doing very well coming up with the goods. Seems they’re excellent at separating Uncle Sam from OUR money……. Go figure….!!!!
The problem with assessing North Korea’s real military capabilities is that every regime on all sides is highly incentivized to talk those capabilities up. Obviously the North and China want to make the South and the US think twice about attacking, while the South, the US, and Japan want to justify large troop presences and military expenditures to fend off a hypothetical attack by the North.
There goes more infrastructure spending!! USA so stupid. China will sink those carriers any time it feels the need,,sitting ducks.
Purposeless hierarchy vs entropic chaos.
Those super-expensive “flying” F35 flatirons seem to be disappearing at high speed.
Good.
Well, at this rate, I am less worried about going to war with China and more worried about these accidents decimating our military capability… China does not need to do us in, when we are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves…
US military capability needs to be far more than decimated (reduced by 10%). If the goal is actual “national defense,” an 80-90% cut would probably be a good start.
I am down with that Mr. Knapp!
Donna has a point. The issue is not the quality of defense capability, but of a multi-national imperial aggression on the other side of the world. The F-35 project has a continuous history of problems even in unstressed missions. And that’s just the surface. The performance of the privatized maintenance in war, given the quality and complexity of the equipment, along with an officer caste promoted on the Peter Principle of mindless servility all tend to inspire visons of Lord Cardigan and his Light Brigade, no?
You are correct Mr. Knapp.
Sad to hear. I am curious about the damage to the plane. Did the plane go off the carrier. What is the status on the pilot? I assume that is a one seater aircraft. I am also curious if that was a night landing or a daytime landing. I guess we will find out if this was an aircraft maintenance problem or a pilot error. This is very sad to hear, especially for the people injured and for the loss of an expensive aircraft either in part or in full. I wonder if we’re going to find out how many carrier deck flight hours this pilot had. Will we know the name of the pilot or not?
Given the threat to these carriers from China, my guess is that these F-35 aircraft are being used around the clock. I also wonder if these aircraft are certified on this carrier to carry the B-61 nuclear bomb. Losing an aircraft with any B-61 nuclear devices would be very serious. If these F-35 aircraft are constantly in the air carrying the B-61, China knows that if the carriers are attacked with anti-ship missiles, the F-35s will carry out missions on China soil in retaliation. Please planes maybe going through a lot of stress right now, and sailors may be tired of around the clock schedules. Getting the proper amount of rest so pilots and sailor maintenance personnel can each do there job is important.
Something either went wrong with the plane or the pilot.
Some have been reporting bad vax reactions, but most won’t admit to anything that takes them off the flight line if they can get it past the flight surgeon.
Well, that’s US$ 337 million gone. (2014 value.)
Hope the pilot is OK.
Hope the F-35 is a total loss.