A US Air Force fighter jet pilot had a troubleshooting call moments before the crash.
According to CNN, the crash report released this week has revealed that the F-35 pilot held a 50-minute conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers to fix the issue with the fighter jet before ejecting from the aircraft safely.
The $200 million F-35 fighter jet of the US Air Force crashed at Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks on January 28 this year. However, the pilot ejected safely with only minor injuries.
The Air Force investigation blamed ice in the hydraulic lines of the F-35's nose and main landing gear for causing a malfunction that led to the crash.
Meanwhile, the recently released report states that after takeoff, the pilot tried to retract the landing gear but failed to do it fully, and when he tried to lower it again, it locked at an angle to the left. Later, the troubleshooting efforts led the fighter jet's systems to think it was on the ground, which ultimately resulted in the crash.
After running through system checklists to try to fix the issue, the pilot joined a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers that included five engineers: a senior software engineer, a flight safety engineer, and three landing gear systems specialists.
The pilot then attempted two "touch and go" landings but failed. Following the efforts, the F-35's sensors thought the jet was on the ground, causing the computer systems to switch to "automated ground-operation mode" that caused a crash.
