this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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Full 39 page report here for those that want the primary source instead of CNN. It's a direct link to the public PDF from a US Air Force website, so I highly recommend a use of a VPN if you are concerned about that.
Honestly this crash is more of a mishap in maintenance than an error with the plane. Hydraulic fluid that was filled with water froze, causing the landing gear to get stuck and the sensors that determine if the aircraft is on the ground or not (WoW, or weight on wheels sensors) to state that the aircraft was on the ground, which put the aircrafts flight control system in ground control mode and made it uncontrollable. None of this is specific to the F-35, fly by wire and automated control systems that take input from sensors have existed for over 50 years now in fighter aircraft. "Conference calls" is something that every manufacturer, civilian or military, will provide for their aircraft if there's an issue, someone will always be available for consultation.
What is a mistake, and one more and more likely to be made, is the priotizing and full entrusting of those sensors. A sensor has existed for 50 years, but the software made in such a way that overriding is impossible. Or without overriding, why does "on the ground" mode stop the full fly-by-wire controls of the aircraft? Should just continue to work anyways for touch and go regardless of how many sensors say something. Ridiculous that it doesn't. This means that this was a missed safety condition in development, or one that was accepted without noticing the likelihood that it would happen given the maintenance procedures (procedures and the parties that will perform actions are ALSO part of any good safety analysis). So maintenance failures are still something that should reflect on performance in a system. It's not separable
seems massively stupid not to have a pilot override. i mean, i've had plenty of equipment with safety "features" with no operator override and they're all pieces of shit. i can't imagine what would drive someone to do that with a fighter jet.
But there are no manual controls on a modern fighter, they are aerodynamically unstable so even if you wanted to implement a manual backup system, it would be impossible. The way modern flight control systems work, is that they take the pilot's inputs, interpret the desired outcome that the pilot wants from said inputs, and achieve it by calculating the various movements of control surfaces required to achieve the desired outcome. This means the movements of ailerons, rudders, elevators, flaps and engine controls to achieve that, without the pilot being aware of all of this, just that the aircraft is behaving as expected from the control inputs. The system also is constantly adjusting these inputs to keep the aircraft stable and within it's performance envelope without the pilot's involvement. Hence why something like an F-35 or B-2 can fly in the first place, and why a Su-35 can pull off spectacular maneuvers.
If you mean a manual override for not going into certain control law configurations, I'm not sure if that can be implemented. The flight control system is constantly "blending" between different flight modes and adjusting based off of data from all the sensors onboard. It's not a binary thing. While I'm sure there are forms of manual overrides, it's not that simple. Here the F-35 went into ground control flight laws once 3/5 of the weight on wheels sensors stated that the aircraft was on the ground.
As for using different sensors, airspeed can't be used as the aircraft could be above V1/rotation speed and still have wheels on the ground during takeoff, or it could be below that speed or below stall speed and still airborne. And I don't think the altimeter is precise enough to know exactly when each wheel lifts off of the ground either. As for a cutoff that states "if the aircraft is above X speed and Y altitude it's definitely airborne", we'll just be back to square one, once we drop below that cutoff. So it's not hugely useful either.
This is good info, but it still seems like a manual “I’m actually still in the air” button could be available to influence those algorithms
Keep in mind that the pilot would have had 9 seconds to determine that the problem is being in ground control law, decide to flip the switch, unguard the switch and flip it. Once the aircraft thinks it is on the ground, it begins to actively crash and if the issue isn't the flight control law, those wasted seconds risk killing the operator.
decide to flip the switch, unguard the switch and flip it
Are you aware of what the F-35 cockpit looks like? It's mostly a giant touchscreen. What's all this nonsense about "flipping a switch"? Surely you mean navigate to the correct settings menu.
Oh so it's even worse than I thought. That's a surprising lack of guarded switches.
Definitely, Marmite Lover is just wrong here to use it as a defense. The technical explanation of computer controlling systems has no impact on the fact that software can put an aircraft in a state without any pilot override.
How did the pilot fly it for 50 minutes in that state if manual control is impossible?
Because at the start only 1 of the sensors, the one on the nose gear wheel, was stating that the aircraft was on the ground. After multiple touch and go landing attempts, the two main landing gear struts froze as well, and the other sensors also then stated that the aircraft was on the ground. Once that point was reached, only then the aircraft went into ground control flight laws.
When I say modern fighter aircraft don't have "manual control", I mean there's no physical connection between the flight stick and the control surfaces, it all goes through a computer.
Understood, thank you for the explanation. Still think a 'go to air mode now' switch on that bug dumb control panel those things have would be a good idea for cases like this.
in the abstract, of course. It's good there is one less of these shitty death machines.
everything's computer
That's actually the most simple and concise way to explain it lol.
He didn't. He was flying for 50 minutes in the normal and correct "fly-by-wire" settings. Then he did two touch and go landings. On the second touch and go the F-35 decided that he was now on the ground. The new fly-by-wire settings were now in ground mode and this made it impossible to fly the plane properly in the air.
Okay. I am confused why he would be in the call then if things were working. And no I am not gonna read this transcript, sorry to ask you questions about it.
Also, wouldn't a good override for a case like this be: "hey plane, I am not on the ground, resume flight mode you fucking 100+ million dollar piece of shit"? You know, instead of turning the assistance off?
The F-35 is a piece of shit. There were two separate problems.
A. Problem 1 is that the hydraulic fluid froze because of shitty maintenance. It's not supposed to do that. This caused the landing gear to become stuck in a partially retracted position. The pilot couldn't land so he called tech support and spent 50 minutes on a conference call. B. The tech support guys told him to do some touch and go landings to see if that fixes the problem. Basically hitting the landing gear against the runway to see if that fixes it. C. During the 2nd touch and go landing the F-35 decided it was landed and switch the pilot from the flying controls to the ground controls. These are really only meant for doing stuff on the ground like taxi-ing or starting the take-off. You can't fly the plane like this so the pilot ejected and the plane crashed.
Yes there should be an override but also that may not have helped in this situation. Once the F-35 decided it was on the ground he would have only a few seconds to figure out the problem, override the system, and pilot his way out of a crash. What would have been useful is an override he could have set up in advance to prevent the F-35 from switching to ground mode regardless of what its sensors tell it. I'm sure Lockheed can code something like that for a few billion dollars.
but in that case, couldn't the "blend" be altered like a coffee or something? or if that's a stupid question, couldn't the weight on wheels sensors be disabled? idk it just seems like there's a lot of stuff that could have been overridden
America used to have so many engineers, like an entire generation of brilliant engineers.
What happened? Did everyone who wants to get into that just get priced out of the degree? Did they all go into finance, because that's where all the money is? It really seems like nothing works in this country anymore, not even the trillion dollar wonder weapons.
When I started my career I was told the "leadership" career path goes higher than the technical career path. Then, again and again, I was reminded that being loud was rewarded more than being smart.
Multiply this "culture of leadership" across all of industry and here we are. Top it off with "everyone but executives are overhead and expendable" and it doesn't pay to be good at something. You get the brain drain you see before you.
here's my take on the whole thing https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/when-beliefs-die
GOOD post
thanks
I did an engineering degree in the UK and half the graduates went into banking. Dunno if it's the same dynamic here.
that's how it is with any degree
- do degree
- not in finance
- graduate
- all jobs in your chosen sector pay like shit
- do finance
A lot of those engineers were operation paperclipped over here
At that point, the F-35’s sensors indicated it was on the ground and the jet’s computer systems transitioned to “automated ground-operation mode,” the report said.
This caused the fighter jet to become “uncontrollable” because it was “operat(ing) as though it was on the ground when flying,” forcing the pilot to eject.
Boeing-type software problem
a fix for this has been deprioritized, the plane will eventually be on the ground.
Closed: WILL NOT FIX
The reason for this was because the hydraulic fluid was 30% water after the barrels were left outside in Japan during a rainstorm. The barrels were also expired.
Additionally, there was insufficient tracking of what hydraulic barrel(s) went on movements and whether said barrel(s) returned to Eielson AFB (Tab V-9.11). Information pertaining to barrel movement is not required to be tracked in depth, but HAZMAT records were incomplete and did not permit accurate tracing (Tabs V-9.11, BB-199-200). For example, information about at 354 FGS hydraulic fluid barrel that was transported to Kadena Air Base, Japan, in support of a Theater Security Package (TSP) was overwritten by a subsequent deployment to that Air Base (Tab BB- 199-200). This error made it impossible to track where the barrel had traveled upon completion of the exercise (Tab BB-199-200).
Because of incomplete records, there was insufficient information to confirm whether the barrel used to service hydraulic fluid the MA on 23 January 2025 was the same hydraulic barrel that was left outside in inclement weather at Kadena Air Base for at least six weeks (Tab BB-199-200). This was in direct violation of Air Force regulations, which require that hydraulic fluid be stored in a container tightly closed in a dry and well-ventilated place." in accordance with AFI 91-203 and OSHA Safety Data Sheets (Tab BB-14, 22)." "Additionally, the hydraulic barrel that was used to service the MA had been marked empty/consumed" in April 2024, but had not been disposed of (Tabs D-15, BB-199-200). Even so, it was in-use at the 355 FGS and, when tested, contained about 33 percent water (Tab J-13).
This isn't an issue with the aircraft, any plane is going to fail when you put multiple liters of water into the hydraulics. The ground crews massively screwed up though.
For those that want to know, MA stands for "Mishap Aircraft", which is the plane that crashed. So the barrel of hydraulic fluid that was used to service the plane before crashing was 1/3 water.
Looks like the quality is the No. 1 enemy of the F-35, not the competition.
If this appeared in a work of satire, I'd call it too on-the-nose.
he probably crashed it just to get out of the call 🤣
Bro had 21 bussiness days to land the plane
isn't that just calling tech support how is it a conference call