The fighters of the US Marine Corps lost the battle with the elements. Portal marinecorpstimes.com he reported that two F-35B Lightning II were damaged by a lightning strike in the sky over Japan at once.
Both fighters were based at the Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Base and were struck by lightning during a training flight. Despite serious damage (the incident was assigned the maximum class "A"), both pilots landed safely and were not injured.
F-35B fighter jets
Image source: f35.com
"After carrying out standard reporting and evaluation procedures, the weather-related incident was marked as a Class A accident due to the total projected repair costs exceeding $2.5 million," said Captain Marco Valenzuela, a representative of the 12th Marine Aviation Group.
Earlier, the US Air Force restricted the flights of its F-35A Lightning II fighters due to problems with the on-board inert gas generation system (OBIGGS). Nitrogen-enriched air is needed for fuel tanks, since it eliminates the possibility of an explosion during a lightning strike. But the F-35B modification has a different OBIGGS design, so its limitations were not affected. As the latest incident showed, the system on these aircraft works effectively.
