F-35 crashes and burns on takeoff in Albuquerque

A brand new F-35 crashed into a hillside yesterday afternoon immediately after taking off from the joint-use runway at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The pilot, who ejected, was seriously injured.

The jet was being delivered to the military at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California from the Lockheed Martin facility in Fort Worth Texas. It was just making the stop at Kirtland Air Force Base for refueling. Kirtland shares the runways with the civilian Albuquerque International Sunport Airport.

Like the runway at Burlington International Airport the runway at Sunport/Kirtland aims at densely populated areas in both directions. A catastrophe in Albuquerque was fortunately avoided because the jet struck the ground so close to the runway, well before reaching those populated areas.

The Associated Press article in the Air Force Times includes an interview:

“Patrick White, who was driving in the area at the time of the crash, told AP that he saw the aircraft trailing low to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt and dust. He said it briefly disappeared from his line of sight, and then he saw “an enormous plume of black smoke.”

When he drove past the crash, he said he saw a piece of the fighter jet in the middle of the road.

Click this link to see the car-cam video from immediately after the crash that was published on the Daily Mail UK website. That video shows the enormous plume of black smoke continuing for an extended period of time as the driver approaches the scene of the crash. According to the news report, local fire crews got assistance from the Air Force base to put out the fire.

The F-35A weighs 20,000 pounds and its body is 42% carbon composite materials that are flammable. A crashed F-35 with those carbon composite materials burning in the fuel fire on impact would emit thousands of pounds of toxic fibers and fumes in the minutes before firefighters arrive. And that would not be good if the crash happens in South Burlington, which surrounds the runway at Burlington International Airport. Or if it crashes into one of the immediately adjacent cities of Winooski, Burlington, and Williston.

Twenty F-35 jets are based at the Burlington International Airport. And that is notwithstanding military discipline that forbids intermingling such dangerous military equipment with densely populated areas. The Vermont Air National Guard trains with those jets thousands of times a year in that location under the direction of Vermont Governor Phil Scott.

The Guard never responded to a 62-page complaint submitted to the Inspector General by 657 Vermonters that described the violations of law and the violations of the military’s own discipline from training with F-35 jets amidst the most densely populated cities in Vermont.