On January 24, one of the most expensive US warplanes crashed while trying to land on an aircraft carrier and sank in the South China Sea. The $94 million F-35 Joint Strike jet is now the subject of a salvage operation.
In a statement issued on the day of the accident, the US Navy said seven sailors were injured when the jet had a “problem landing” on the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson. The Navy did not mention that the plane ended up at the bottom of the ocean.
The Force has reported little publicly about the incident since. In response to questions from The New York Times, the Navy’s 7th Fleet said last week that the service “has begun mobilizing units that will be used to verify the site and recover” the crashed F-35.
Photos and videos that appear to have been taken aboard the Vinson were posted on social media. Public relations officials said some of the images — such as one of the F-35 on the sea surface — are authentic. “There is an ongoing investigation into the accident and the unauthorized release of the video recording aboard the ship,” said Commander Zach Harrell, a spokesman for the Naval Air Forces.
It was only after a Twitter user posted the video of the crash on Sunday that Navy officials admitted the jet had slammed into the rear of the flight deck before sliding the full length of the deck and falling to the ground. sea.
Will the Navy be able to retrieve its million-dollar jet from the ocean floor before an adversary country finds it? This is what we know so far about the incident and how the rescue operation might take place.
Where’s the plane? Quick answer: we don’t know exactly. But we have an interesting lead, from the public statements.
On January 29, Japan’s coast guard issued a notice informing sailors of rescue operations in an area in the northern part of the South China Sea. The statement said that rescue operations at a given latitude and longitude would continue “until further notice”.
The U.S. Navy’s Japan-based 7th Fleet sent questions about the warning to the Japanese coast guard, which said last week that the U.S. National Space Geointelligence Agency had requested publication of the warning. A spokesperson for the agency, which is part of the Department of Defense, sent questions about that warning back to the Navy.
The notice places the rescue site approximately 13,000 feet (3.9 kilometers) below the sea surface and closer to the Philippines than to China.
The Navy’s initial statement said that three of the sailors injured in the accident had been flown to Manila, the capital of the Philippines, for medical treatment. The Japanese Coast Guard notice said the rescue site was about 512 km from Manila — which is within range of Vinson’s Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, which would have transported the injured sailors to Manila.
Can the Navy recover a plane at this depth? According to force documents, it can lift a crashed plane up to 20,000 feet (6 km) using a remotely operated vehicle the Navy calls the CURV-21. Weighing over 3 tons, the crate-shaped underwater drone can be unloaded from the deck of a Navy rescue ship or commercial vessel and controlled by technicians on the surface via a cable.
Last year, the Navy used a CURV-21 aboard a Norwegian civilian vessel called the Grand Canyon II to rescue an MH-60S helicopter from a depth of nearly 6 km in the northern Pacific Ocean.
Contacted by phone, an executive with Volstad Maritime, which owns the Grand Canyon II, said the ship is not participating in the F-35 rescue. He is leased to an energy company and works in oil and gas fields off the coast of Thailand.
How would the rescue take place? The US Navy could use another ship to do the job, as long as it had the capability to carry an underwater vehicle like the CURV-21, which would be used to connect a cable from the ship to the wrecked plane. The ship would also need to have a crane strong enough to lift the plane off the ocean floor, probably one capable of lifting at least 100 tons. In addition, the ship would need to have a large open deck where the jet would be deposited.
During last year’s deep-water helicopter rescue, a Maryland-based company called Phoenix International provided support for the Grand Canyon II. A Phoenix executive contacted by phone declined to comment on whether the company is involved in the current rescue of the F-35.
Will China be able to recover the plane? We don’t know, but it’s not out of the question as China has shown off its own remotely operated underwater vehicles. The main question would be: can Chinese vehicles operate at the same depth as American ones?
As the F-35 crashed in close proximity to a full carrier strike group, it is possible that the Navy left a smaller escort warship, such as a destroyer, to guard the crash site. However, the Pentagon has dismissed the idea that the Navy is in a dispute with the Chinese force to get the plane out of the sea.
“I think you can understand that we are taking appropriate planning steps to rescue our aircraft and we will recover it in a timely manner, as we have done in the past,” Pentagon chief spokesman said at a Monday news conference. John Kirby. “That’s why I think any question about us being in a kind of competition to recover what is actually our property is speculative to say the least.”
