Navy Recovers F-35C Sunk In South China Sea In ‘Landing Mishap’
The aircraft was hoisted by a crane from a depth of 12,400 feet in the South China Sea, the Navy said.
A Navy pilot ejected from the F-35C Lightning II during the incident and was recovered from the water by a U.S. military helicopter. [Courtesy: U.S. Navy]
The U.S. Navy has successfully recovered a F-35C Lightning II that went down into the South China Sea in a “landing mishap" earlier this year.
U.S. 7th Fleet’s Task Force (CTF) 75 and Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) launched the salvage effort in late January after a Navy pilot ejected during a routine flight operation aboard the USS Carl Vinson and the fighter jet assigned to the Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2 plunged into the ocean.
The aircraft was located about 12,400 feet below the water's surface. A recovery team from CTF 75 and the NAVSEA’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV) March 2 using the diving support construction vessel (DSCV) Picasso, the Navy said Thursday.
As part of the operation, the recovery team used a CURV-21 remotely operated vehicle to attach specialized rigging and lift lines to the aircraft. The F-35 was then hoisted out of the sea and onboard the Picasso by the ship's crane, the Navy said.
“The task force’s expertise in rapid, scalable command, control, and communications, agile logistics, organic security, and explosive ordnance disposal was the most flexible choice for the fleet commander to respond in a timely manner,” CTF 75 Commodore, Capt. Gareth Healy, said in a statement. “Ultimately, this deliberate approach resulted in the correct capabilities conducting recovery operations within 37 days of the incident."
Recovering the remains of the advanced stealth fighter from international waters before other countries—namely China—attempted to do so was a priority for the Navy, observers noted following the January 24 incident.
China would likely try to find and survey the wreckage site through the use of submarines and deep diving submersibles, Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii, told CNN at the time. According to Schuster, China could have potentially attempted to make a claim for the salvage rights based on its South China Sea territorial claims.
The remains of the F-35 will be transported to a nearby military installation for inspection as part of an ongoing investigation into the incident, the Navy said.
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