Training with the F-35 in a City: A Catastrophe Waiting to Happen

Today is the 60th anniversary of the B-52 bomber crash that almost destroyed Barre

Today, the 60th anniversary of the December 9, 1960 B-52 bomber crash in Vermont, is appropriate for considering F-35 crash danger: the F-35 combines some of the kinetic and fuel fire danger of the B-52 with three new crash dangers: the F-35’s military carbon composite body and stealth coating combust in the fuel fire to pose an unacceptable toxic risk to the people and animals in the cities amidst which the F-35 is flying.

Ten weeks ago the Marines were conducting a training exercise during which a Marine F-35 collided with a KC-130J Hercules refueling tanker while practicing aerial refueling.

The Marine F-35 pilot ejected. The F-35 jet exploded in a fireball upon high-speed impact with the ground. Regardless of the cause of the accident, the screen shot below from a ten-second video illustrates the genuine competence of the Marine commander and pilots. The screen shot also provides evidence of their willingness to obey Department of Defense regulations and common sense--as distinguished from the commanders and pilots of the Vermont National Guard.

A slightly longer video of the crash shows the F-35-B descent, impact, fireball, and the emission of an enormous black cloud.

The screen shot above and the videos clearly show that the aerial refueling training operation was conducted over a California desert, remote from any populated area.

To their credit, the Marines observed Department of Defense rules by not conducting the operation over a city where the kinetic impact, fuel fire, and the emission of thousands of pounds of F-35 toxic and carcinogenic combustion products, fibers, and particulates would have produced a catastrophe.

The California fireball crash marked just the 8th major accident involving an F-35. Inevitably, there will be more:

·       An Air Force F-35A suffered a catastrophic engine failure during takeoff at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida on June 23, 2014. The accident investigation report indicated that pieces of a fractured rotor cut through the engine's fan case, engine bay, internal fuel tank, and hydraulic and fuel lines, igniting leaking fuel and burning the rear two-thirds of the aircraft. The pilot was able to bring the jet to a stop before the end of Eglin’s long runway and escape before “the flames quickly grew to an inferno.”

·       An F-35A taking off at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho was engulfed in an uncontained engine fire on the runway caused by tailwinds present at engine start on September 23, 2016. The fire spread to aircraft surfaces, panels, cables and components, and the pilot sustained burns.

·       A mid-air fire in a Marine Corps F-35B on October 27, 2016, was caused by a flawed weapons bay bracket that “chafed against electrical wiring, which is near hydraulic lines. . . An electrical short ignited fluid from a pinhole-sized leak in the hydraulic line.” The pilot was able to land at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina and exit safely.

·       While one F-35A stealth fighter was experiencing a nose gear collapse upon landing on the runway at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, on August 22, 2018, another F-35A at the same base was hit with a bird strike. The first F-35A was returning to base after experiencing an unspecified in-flight emergency.

·       After the pilot ejected, a Marine Corps F-35B crashed in a remote area of South Carolina on September 28, 2018. The aircraft had begun to malfunction while returning to Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. The military suspects that a faulty fuel tube, a recurring concern with the F-35 fleet, contributed to the crash.

·       Japanese authorities blame an F-35 crash into the sea off the coast of Japan that killed the pilot and destroyed the F-35 on pilot “spacial disorientation” during a high-speed descent that followed a night training flight on April 29, 2019.

·       Six total factors, including speed, helmet, oxygen, and flight control problems, led to the crash of an Air Force F-35 at Eglin Air Force Base during a landing on May 20, 2020. The pilot “struggled with an extraordinary catalog of problems before he ejected from the jet.” The F-35 then crashed and caught fire, and was completely destroyed.

The record of major F-35 accidents is consistent with the Air Force expectation that crash rate for the F-35A would be higher than the crash rate of the F-16 jets that previously trained from the Burlington airport. Based on Air Force experience with the F-15, F-16, and F-22, the Air Force Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) anticipated an especially high “class A mishap” (crash) rate (pages 3-28 and 3-51) for the F-35 during its early years of operation.

The procedure long observed by the Air Force had been to train with such new fighter jets from runways remote from populated areas until sufficient fleet flight hours and sufficient accidents produced sufficient learning that crash rate substantially declined. The F-35 is still toward the beginning of that learning curve.

For example, the Air Force did not base F-16s at Burlington airport until 1986, when the F-16 had surpassed one million fleet flight hours and had experienced over 70 class A mishaps (crashes) (EIS p. 3-28). Those 70 provided the learning that led to a reduced crash rate. By 2013 the F-16 had 9 million fleet flight hours, 351 class A mishaps, and a correspondingly much lower last-five-year crash rate. Way lower than the crash rate the Air Force EIS anticipated for the incoming F-35 (volume I, p. 4-52).

The normal Air Force procedure to delay basing in any populated area until that million-fleet-flight-hour mark was respected until Senator Leahy exerted pressure. And an Air Force General took Senator Leahy’s calls and accepted the pressure to base the F-35 jets in the most densely populated area of Vermont.

Numbers given by Lockheed-Martin indicate that all three versions of the F-35 together had only ¼ million fleet flight hours, as of March 2020–which is only 1/4 as many fleet flight hours as the Air Force EIS says the F-16 had when it first arrived in the city location. The Air Force version of the F-35 now flying in Burlington has a fraction of even that inadequate number of fleet flight hours. The three F-35 versions are sufficiently different from each other that their accident rates must be kept separate.

The Air Force EIS points out that the areas within 3 miles of each end of the runway are the most likely places for an aircraft mishap to occur. (Volume I p. 3-26). Shockingly, 1,443 homes and 32 commercial or industrial properties are located in this Air Force designated area that includes parts of South Burlington, extends into Burlington, entirely through Winooski, and into Colchester at one end of the runway and across part of Williston at the other end.

Such extremely low fleet flight hours for the Air Force F-35 version plant a bright red flag for expectation of a devastating F-35 crash in a densely populated area.

Especially the location of Winooski—the runway aims directly at the city only one mile away—exposes thousands of Vermonters to unprecedented and unacceptable danger: Unlike the metal-bodied F-16 and B-52, the F-35's flammable advanced military carbon composite body and flammable advanced aerospace stealth coating will ignite in the crash as its 2,700 gallons of jet fuel burn. Thousands of pounds of toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic combustion products will be released in a densely populated neighborhood before firefighters arrive. The fumes, fibers, and particulates will spread with the wind to produce a wide-area catastrophe. An Air Force Systems Command report suggests “anticipating and preventing” such an event.

A catastrophic F-35A crash in a densely populated area can be anticipated and prevented. Prevented by Vermont using the authority the US Constitution provides to all the states over the training their national guard units. The Vermont governor, the Vermont Guard commanders, and the Vermont legislature each has full authority over the training and can immediately order a halt to the F-35 training takeoffs and landings in a densely populated part of the state.

Practice flights with F-35 jets in a city, especially this early in its program life when its crash rate is particularly high, demonstrate wanton disregard for the lives and property of thousands of working class and black and brown Vermont civilians in Winooski. The Air Force EIS reports disproportionate impact on “low income and minority populations” (p. BR4-82) The practice flights in a city also demonstrate a flagrant and blatant violation of US and Vermont laws, constitutional rights, and the military’s own regulations, as was described in a 62-page complaint to the Vermont Governor to which 657 Vermonters signed on.

The Vermont governor and legislative and military leaders have the constitutional authority to stop the F-35 training flights in a city. Their playing Russian roulette with the lives and property of thousands of Vermonters is impermissible.

The B-52 crash near Barre was a low probability event. So also were the 182 military aircraft lost in accidents since 2013 that killed 224 military pilots or air crew. The crash threat and crash consequences of continuing those F-35 flights over densely populated Winooski, Williston, Colchester, Burlington and South Burlington are sufficient so investigation, prosecution, and incarceration of the reckless Vermont misleaders responsible is mandated. Such unprecedented enforcement action is needed now and should not be delayed until the foreseeable catastrophe actually happens.