homepage Forums SimHQ Community Community Hall F-35 Crash In Alaska - Pilot Ejected

Investigations are ongoing, and it sounds like the pilot is OK, but it's pretty spectacular footage:

https://x.com/BNONews/status/1884403526673006977?mx=2

https://nypost.com/2025/01/28/us-ne...s-on-runway-at-air-force-base-in-alaska/

Glad to hear the pilot ejected safely.

Pretty bizarre seeing the parachute first and the plane falling from higher up with the gear down, literally tumbling. Very unusual.

Total speculation but I will guess that he was on final, lost power, pitched up to gain some altitude, punched out. Jet continues uphill a short way and comes back down. There's probably other ways to explain the pilot being lower than the aircraft but that's all I can come up with.

Yes, that all looked very odd, and with it falling like a leaf. I'm guessing some kind of FLCS malfunction, but who knows at this point.

The plane looked like it rolled inverted a number of times. Maybe the pilot ejected downward.

Wizard

Not a lot more info here, but the first press briefing from the base:

Worth reading.


https://www.codeonemagazine.com/f35_article.html?item_id=187



https://www.mathworks.com/content/d..._Flight_Control_DevelopmentDaveNixon.pdf




About ejection. The pilot of the F35 is ejected through the canopy.

https://www.slashgear.com/1702210/what-makes-f-35-fighter-jet-unique/

At 2 minutes it sounds like he's saying the training mission was interrupted by a malfunction that they then spent some period of time investigating before the election.

Screenshot from above video referencing the through the canopy ejection capability:

At the risk of sounding hypocritical, I've only seen two videos from that guy, and it sounds more like he just wants to be negative about something.

The F-35 crash rate is remarkably low compared to other aircraft, and I don't think anyone has lost their lives from any of the accidents. And the cost of the aircraft is high, of course, but compared to other aircraft, it's not really much different. After adding similar sensors, the Super Hornet costs about the same, and the F-15EX costs more than the F-35A.

If crashes were going to increase the push for drones, other aircraft have similar or higher costs, as well as higher crash rates and loss of life, so they'd be more responsible for that than the F-35.

"That guy".

Oh my .....

Yes, that guy,who made the video, as opposed to some other guy. What's the issue?

I have followed Blancolirio for a while.

I thought "that guy" sounded a bit condescending.

You might not like his some of his views, but with his background and aviation knowledge I believe he is worth listening to.

Like "oh my" doesn't sound condescending...

But my use of "that guy" was simply to designate who I was speaking about, because I couldn't see his name while typing my reply.

I'm not saying he's not knowledgeable, but the two videos I've seen of his included, in my opinion, negative commentary that didn't seem accurate to the situation. The first I saw was about the SpaceX launch and the second was this F-35 video, and in both cases it sounded to me that he was focused on things that weren't necessarily specific to these situations, and/or was overly dramatic. Like the "STARSHIP GROUNDED!" headline, where any time there's a launch issue, that launch platform is grounded until a review and report is completed - it's not that surprising. He also said they should "slow Elon down," which sounds condescending to me, referring to someone he doesn't know by first name in a negative light. And again, any launch carries this risk, so it's not specific to SpaceX and "Elon.".

And then with the F-35, he makes a big deal about how its crashes are going to push for more drones, etc., without the context of the F-35s cost and overall safety record, particularly as compared to other jet fighters. It also seemed like it was just a re-hash of what the news had been saying since the event occurred, without any real new insights, so there wasn't a lot to be learned from it.

Perhaps his other videos lack the negativity, but that's the impression I've gotten from him so far.