British F-35 fighter jet drowned because of a raincoat
The accident of the fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II fighter, which drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in November while trying to take off from the British aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth, was caused by a polyethylene raincoat falling into the air intake of the aircraft. The reason for the incident is called "Rossiyskaya Gazeta".
It is noted that the raincoat, due to a strong gust of wind, broke off from one of the sailors who was on the deck of the aircraft carrier at the time of the fighter's takeoff. "The raincoat blocked the air intake channel into the engine, which is why the plane lost speed during takeoff and fell overboard," the newspaper writes.
In December, The Drive reported that the United Kingdom, the United States and Italy had recovered a sunken fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II fighter from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. In total, it took two weeks to find the fragments of the aircraft, and another one to extract them.
In November, military expert Dmitry Boltenkov told Izvestia that the recognition unit of the "friend-foe" system and weapons control equipment may be of particular interest to the Russian side among the elements in the wreckage of the fifth-generation British fighter with a short takeoff and vertical landing of the F-35B Lightning II in the Mediterranean Sea.
The F-35B Lightning II fighter of the Royal Navy of Great Britain sank on the morning of November 17 in the Mediterranean Sea. The pilot managed to eject and was taken to the British aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth. The incident occurred during a scheduled flight.
