The UK Royal Navy’s F-35B stealth fighter jet, which was stranded at Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram airport for the last three weeks, has been towed to a hangar.
The UK technician team that arrived in India has been attempting to repair the aircraft on-site. The team is also considering transporting the jet back home using a C-17 Globemaster military transport aircraft. A fresh group of engineers has now arrived in an Airbus A400M Atlas aircraft to assist in the efforts of the team.
The new engineering team will decide whether to repair the jet in India itself or it will need to be dismantled to be shipped back to the UK. The jet can fit inside a cargo aircraft for its return journey only if it is discarded.
F-35B which is valued at over $110 million is designed with advanced stealth technology and requires highly specialized handling. It is the world’s most expensive fighter jet in terms of development costs.
The initial evaluation of the malfunction was carried out by engineers from the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales concluding that the repairs required additional technical expertise and specialized equipment, which had to be flown in from the United Kingdom.
The recent eincident of UK F-35 being grounded in India is not the first of its case. Earlier in May 2019, an F-35 fighter jet was airlifted after undergoing t wing removal before being airlifted by a C-17 Globemaster from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The complex process was the result of a $200,000 four-year project, according to Eglin AFB’s official website.
Also Read: British F-35 Jet Makes Emergency Landing In Kerala After Failing to Return to Warship
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
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