F-35 aircraft engine deliveries resume after 2 month pause following ejection
WASHINGTON (CBSNewsTexas.com) — Over two months after a pilot was ejected from a F-35 fighter jet during an attempted landing at a Fort Worth naval air base, engine deliveries for the aircraft have resumed.
Pentagon officials confirmed on Friday that the aircraft's engines are once again being delivered to production lines but noted that some F-35s have not yet been cleared to resume flight operations.
Production was paused back in December 2022 after the incident at the Fort Worth naval air base, where a F-35 B-Model was in the process of a vertical landing when the nose began to lean forward as the back wheels lifted up.
The front of the plane fell into the pavement, and smoke began pouring out of the nose before the pilot was ejected. His parachute deployed and he landed without injury.
The botched landing prompted an investigation which discovered a "rare system phenomenon involving harmonic resonance" that affected the airplane's safe operation. Engineers with Pratt & Whitley, the Joint Program Office (JPO), Lockheed Martin, Naval Air Systems Command, and the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center worked together to understand the problem and find a solution.
A spokesperson for the JPO said that the "actions the government and industry team are taking will ensure incorporation of mitigation measures that will fully address/resolve this rare phenomenon in impacted F135 engines."
"The government is currently working to provide instructions to the fleet and to Lockheed Martin to enable safe resumption of flight operations of impacted aircraft and new production aircraft," they continued. "The safety of our warfighters is our number one priority."
