A half-inch-long crack in a turbine engine blade prompted the Pentagon to ground the fleet of 51 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters on Friday, the latest black eye for the troubled and oft-delayed military jet program.
Engineers at Pratt & Whitney planned to conduct a detailed examination of the turbine blade on the F135 engine as soon as it arrives at the company’s Connecticut facility. The Pentagon suspended all flights of the F-35 after a borescope inspection last week revealed the crack in the third-stage low-pressure turbine blade deep within the engine after a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
