A US fifth-generation fighter jet, the F-35, crashed in Alaska, USA on January 28th. The pilot ejected to safety, but the aircraft was badly damaged. The shocking video of which has now be going viral on social media. This is the third crash of the premium US F-35 jet within a year, and it comes at a time when the aircraft has been heavily criticized by multiple reports from the Pentagon.
There have also been reports that the new US President Donald Trump has also been left unimpressed by the F 35 programme and may seek to discontinue it. While tech billionaire Elon Musk has also consistently asserted that the F-35 is a program with extremely high costs with outdated and inefficient design.
The recent accident occurred on the runway at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. Eielson spokesperson Staff Sgt. Kimberly Touchet said: “It’s still under investigation, so they’re trying to confirm all the details.” In a press conference, Col. Paul Townsend, 354th Fighter Wing Commander, said that the pilot was in the process of landing during a training exercise when his jet suffered an “inflight malfunction,” forcing him to eject. He said the pilot was executing normal, standard procedures when the crash occurred.
The incident occurred at about 12:49 pm, causing significant damage to the aircraft. “The pilot is safe and has been transported to Bassett Army Hospital for further evaluation,” a USAF statement said.
A crash video of the aircraft shows the F-35 spinning and falling vertically towards the ground. The pilot, who had ejected by the time, can be seen descending in a parachute, watching his plane plunge past him – just meters away. As the aircraft hit the ground, it exploded.
JUST IN: F-35 fighter jet crashes at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. The pilot survived pic.twitter.com/zEuPNY8jqk
— BNO News (@BNONews) January 29, 2025
The Marine Corps investigation has so far attributed the crash to a pilot error but said an “electrical event” caused multiple system failures—including both radios, the transponder, the tactical air navigation system, and the instrument landing system. Due to the aircraft’s stealth coating, it was located 30 hours after the crash.
The F-35 Fighter
The jet in question is the Lockheed Martin F-35 which is considered as one of the premier fighter aircrafts produced by the USA. It is a single-seat, single-engine, supersonic stealth multirole combat aircraft designed for both air superiority and strike missions. The F-35 also has electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. Lockheed Martin is the prime F-35 contractor with principal partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems.
Its development is principally funded by the United States, with additional funding from program partner countries from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and close U.S. allies, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and formerly Turkey. Several other countries have also ordered, or are considering ordering, the aircraft.
The program however has drawn serious criticism for its unprecedented size, complexity, ballooning costs, and delayed deliveries. The F-35 program is the most expensive military endeavor in history, with the US Government Accountability Office estimating that its lifetime cost will exceed US $2 trillion. Each plane costs at least $82 million, though some variants cost up to $110 million.
The Eielson airbase was selected in 2016 to host 54 F-35s. An expansion costing more than 500 million dollars was carried out to host the aircraft. Since the F-35 started flying nearly two decades ago, there have been 31 aircraft crashes. Earlier in May 2024, an F-35 crashed in New Mexico after a refueling stop, seriously injuring the pilot.
Critical eye of Trump and Musk
According to reports in the New York Post last month, journalist Lydia Moynihan broke the story on social media site X, claiming a conversation between F-35’s Lockheed CEO and President Donald Trump, “Overheard: Trump told Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet that he plans to cancel the $1T F-35 contract that was struck last month. “China is winning the fighter race while Lockheed sends executives to DEI camps,” a source close to Trump said of the decision.”
The Chinese 6th Gen fighter being unveiled has become a huge talking point in international military circles. Many experts believe that the US, once the leader in all kinds of defence tech may soon be left behind if China continues its rapid tech advancement. The Russia-Ukraine war has also showcased the vital requirement of drones, and their decisive utilities with much lower cost cutting down on the human casualties as well.
Apart from reports of Trump being unimpressed by the F-35 project. Tech Billionaire Elon Musk has also been extremely critical of the F-35. The businessman is a crucial part of the new look Trump administration and it is expected he will have a strong say in the future of many governmental projects especially as he will now be heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Taking to X Musk had earlier attacked the piloted fighter aircrafts especially the F-35 in particular. According to Musk, the rise of drones makes such aircraft costly, risky and redundant.
Musk claimed that the F-35 is obsolete in the age of drones. He said on X: “The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level because it was required to be too many things to too many people. This made it an expensive & complex jack of all trades, master of none. Success was never in the set of possible outcomes. And manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway. Will just get pilots killed.” signaling his inclinations towards unmanned technologies. In another post, Musk shared a video of drones flying in formation, adding, “Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35.”
Criticisms of the F-35
Aside from its huge costs and delays in development the F-35 has been criticized extensively for its performance related issued by reports from the US itself. In 2024, a declassified Pentagon report revealed the program’s flaws. It said: “The overall reliability, maintainability, and availability of the US fleet remains below service expectations.” Lockheed Martin responded that the F-35 “consistently meets or exceeds the reliability performance requirements we are contracted to deliver” as “almost 90% of F-35 components are performing better than required.”
The Pentagon had earlier been withholding about $5 million from manufacturer Lockheed Martin for every F-35 stealth fighter the company delivers equipped with an unfinished upgrade, the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) revealed. The figure is the first official dollar amount disclosed by the Pentagon over the delay of a vital upgrade to the fifth-generation fighter.
The Pentagon report read that the F-35 “takes at least twice as long to repair as required” compared to its formal requirements in part because the “poor failure rate of critical parts was a significant contributor to low availability” for missions and “the critical failures are relatively evenly spread out among many different components.”
Details on the F-35’s ability to withstand cyber-attacks on its 24 most sensitive systems were redacted. However, an unredacted portion said, “The knowledge of actual aircraft vulnerability is limited.” They urged the program office to provide a jet “that allows for full, end-to-end testing in a representative cyber threat environment.”
In future war scenarios, the aircraft is expected to go up against China’s 5th-generation fighter jets. However, the report said: “In only one trial was a 5th Generation adversary aircraft used.”
It seems with the upcoming AI tech, coupled with the quickly advancing drone technology as well as with the high running costs, the new Trump administration may seriously consider cutting down on the F-35 project. Elon Musk has been given the charge of cutting down governmental costs and assessing its efficiency, he has already indicated that he considers the F-35 project a waste. Now with regular crashes of its aircrafts the rising cost on the exchequer is something that will definitely be reassessed.