The entire fleet of U.S. F-35s have been grounded worldwide, according to a Pentagon statement released on Thursday. “The U.S. Services and international partners have temporarily suspended F-35 flight operations while the enterprise conducts a fleet-wide inspection of a fuel tube within the engine on all F-35 aircraft,” the F-35 Joint Program Office announced in a statement Thursday morning.
“If suspect fuel tubes are installed, the part will be removed and replaced. If known good fuel tubes are already installed, then those aircraft will be returned to flight status. Inspections are expected to be completed within the next 24 to 48 hours,” the statement expounded.
The announcement of the grounding comes after a United States Marine Corps F-35B from the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, known as the “Warlords,” crashed in South Carolina near Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort on September 28. The pilot safely ejected from the aircraft.
Less than two weeks ago, two U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs flew the first American combat missions for the new joint strike fighter. The combat debut for the F-35B happened on September 27, when two F-35Bs from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit launched from the USS Essex, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship.
“During this mission the F-35B conducted an air strike in support of ground clearance operations, and the strike was deemed successful by the ground force commander,” said a Marine Corps statement confirming the strike.
The airstrike in Afghanistan was not the combat debut for the joint strike fighter. In May, Israeli officials confirmed that the country’s F-35 “Adir” had conducted two airstrikes somewhere in the Middle East.
On the same day of the F-35’s American combat debut, two F-35s took off from and landed on a British aircraft carrier for the first time. The HMS Queen Elizabeth is off the eastern U.S. seaboard in the Atlantic Ocean conducting developmental test trials of the joint strike fighter for the U.K.
The British Ministry of Defence announced on Thursday that the British military had not grounded their F-35 jets.
The F-35B is the short takeoff and vertical landing variant of the aircraft. This allows the plane to hover and land vertically like a helicopter and is a critical requirement for the Marine Corps, which often operates from amphibious ships with smaller decks than the Navy’s aircraft carriers.
The F-35 joint strike fighter is the most expensive program in the Pentagon’s history and became operational in the Marine Corps in 2015 and in the Air Force in 2016. The Navy plans to have their own version of the F-35 flying from aircraft carriers by February 2019.
To date, the U.S. military has purchased 245 F-35 jets from Lockheed Martin. The Air Force has 156, the Marine Corps has 61 and the Navy has 28.
Of the 280 operational F-35s purchased to date by U.S. and international partners, only 51 percent are currently available for flight, Vice Adm. Mat Winter, director of the F-35 Joint Program Office, told reporters back in March.
“If you can afford to buy something, but you have to keep it in the parking lot because you can’t afford to own and operate it, then it really doesn’t do you much good,” Winter said.
