From the moment a British F-35B made an emergency landing at the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport more than a month ago, there has been a re-evaluation of the US-made 4.5-generation stealth fighter, and a silent but roiling global upset in the $60.2-billion aerospace and defence industry.
This aerial sector in the international arms industry is estimated to hit $75.5 billion by 2030—an increase by a quarter from now caused by military aircraft escalating performance by AI-enhanced design and the use of rare, exorbitantly-priced composite materials.
The F-35 is apparently at the very cutting-edge of technology, although its abilities are reportedly, in some fundamental aspects, more manufacturer-driven mystique than real. Nonetheless, it remains the most guarded piloted aerial weapon in existence, its digitalisation and technology—all F-35 fuselages are assembled at a facility in California—shrouded in impenetrable American ownership rights. In more ways than one, the jet is treated as an undeclared American national treasure.
And treasure means inaccessibility. This is what happened with the F-35B—-the second-generation of F-35s—-that plonked down on June 14 at Thiruvananthapuram. Initially, the British refused to let any Indian technician—-or security personnel—approach it on the tarmac. This distancing continued for weeks while the southwest monsoon rains pelted down. The $109-million aircraft just stood in the open until July 6 while the UK tried to fathom what had gone wrong, finally zeroing in on hydraulic failure.
It was eventually shifted to an isolated hangar. Twenty-four British personnel —-14 technical experts from the Royal Air Force (RAF) and 10 ground crew—are now trying to repair the breach, so to speak. Hydraulics, however, seems to be one of the more minor issues besetting the aircraft. There are reports that, after a month of trying to ‘fix the fubared’ (to employ military colloquialism), the technicians might have to dismantle it and cart it off in a giant C-17 Globemaster military transport plane.
There are no CCTVs in the hangar or outside. Discussions between the repair facility and F-35B’s primary operating base at RAF Marham in Norfolk, England are carried out on uneavesdroppable secure satellite communication. There are no Indian personnel anywhere in the vicinity.
None of this is going well for the credibility of the F-35. There is a lot in the US riding on an undisturbed view of the F-35 as invulnerable. The profits of Lockheed Martin, whose dependability has taken a hit because of long delayed contractual deliveries of the F-35 series—both to the US and other militaries—and the reputation of the US administration, which has been flacking the F-35’s sale since the National Export Initiative that was part of the Obama Doctrine, depends on the unassailability of this fighterjet.
But this might already have been in question. The ‘stealth’ British F-35, reportedly on a routine flight outside the Indian Air Defence Identification Zone, was tracked by India’s Integrated Air Command and Control System—despite being ‘invisible’ to radar. This is also because, as Navy Lookout, an ‘independent Royal Navy news and analysis’ platform, reported, “The Aircraft Signature Assessment Facility needed to verify and maintain the aircraft’s stealth characteristics, was originally due in 2021 but will not be available until the 2030s.”
So badly is the UK hamstrung that, in a July 11report titled The UK’s F-35 capability, its independent National Audit Office (NAO) headed by the Comptroller and Auditor General said the F-35 “global programme has had a series of issues which have delayed production and hindered logistical support while technology upgrade and support costs have also increased markedly over recent years”. In its view, “the capability achieved for the estimated £11 billion spent to date is a disappointing return so far compared with MoD plans”. While the UK defence ministry has publicly forecast a whole-life programme cost of £18.76 billion, the NAO’s estimate is £71 billion. The NAO also said only one-third of the UK F-35 fleet “was available to perform at least one of seven possible required missions in 2024 against the MOD’s target”.
Damning as this revelation is, it is in step with America’s paranoia about the F-35. In January 2023, the Pentagon barred all Israeli pilots who had a foreign passport from flying the F-35I Adir fighters. Israel has long had a dual citizenship policy, and many IDF personnel have foreign passports. (A Shiluv/Ipanel survey in 2016 for the Channel 2 news channel found 17 percent of Israelis with foreign passports—and, surprisingly, 56 percent desiring one.)
Included in the US’s stipulation was that all F-35 ground crew—avionics technicians, weapons loaders, fuellers, maintenance personnel (in charge of electricals, hydraulics, engines, airframes), emergency responders, etc—also hold only an Israeli passport.
The degree of paranoia is mindboggling. It imagines, first, that only ‘pure’ Israelis should be allowed to fly the F-35, even though some of the first pilots in the Israeli Air Force , which was founded in 1948, were foreign volunteers. In any case, the force today has only a tiny handful of pilots with dual citizenship—and none among the 400 reservist pilots, 300 of who are fighter pilots. The US directive taints those with a second passport as insufficiently—indeed, questionably—patriotic. And the Netanyahu-led Israeli government, as apartheid as it is possible for a state to be,wholeheartedly agrees.
The US essentially laid down the law for a sovereign country. This is the aircraft that President Donald Trump was pushing India to buy in March. Imagine the stipulations that he can lay down for India.
Kajal Basu | Veteran Journalist
(Views are personal)
(kajalrbasu@gmail.com)