The British Navy’s F-35 fighter jet, which was made an emergency landing at the Thiruvananthapuram airport on June 14 and was stuck there due to a fault in a hydraulic valve, was seen being moved to a hangar at the airport on Monday.
According to officials, the aircraft will not fly today, and its departure date is yet to finalised. The state-of-the-art aircraft was flying from the UK’s aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales and was on a routine mission outside the Indian Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) when it had to make an emergency landing due to a technical problem. The Thiruvananthapuram airport was already identified as an emergency recovery airfield. The Indian Air Force reached the spot and provided all possible technical assistance, including refuelling.
A technical team of the UK Royal Air Force had arrived to repair it and the 5th generation stealth fighter aircraft was parked at the Bay in the airport for many days. The aircraft developed a hydraulic failure, and possibly, it would be taken back in a military transport aircraft, defence officials said on June 14.
It was later moved to Air India hangar where a team from the UK was brought to repair the fighter jet.F-35Bs are highly advanced stealth jets, built by Lockheed Martin, and are prized for their short take-off and vertical landing capability. Earlier, the Indian Navy and the United Kingdom’s Carrier Strike Group (UK CSG25) conducted a joint naval drill, commonly known as a Passage Exercise (PASSEX), in the western Arabian Sea. This marked the UK Strike Group’s “first major engagement” after entering the Indo-Pacific region.
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