The U.S. Air Force is standing-down and inspecting their F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters over concerns about a defect in the jet’s explosive ejection seat cartridges, following a discovery of the problem by the manufacturer, Martin-Baker.
Air Combat Command (ACC) spokeswoman Alexi Worley confirmed the stand-down in response to inquiries by Breaking Defense, who first broke the story.
According to Worley via Breaking Defense, ACC began a Time Compliance Technical Directive on July 19 to inspect all of the cartridges on the ejection seats within 90 days, and started the stand-down of the F-35A fleet today to expedite the inspection process.
Air Force Air Education and Training Command has also grounded some 300 jet trainers for the same concerns and inspections, which include T-38Cs and T-6 Texan IIs (ACC T-38s use A and B models with different ejection seats, so they are unaffected).
Specific aircraft will return to service as maintainers confirm their ejection seats are fully functional, or replace any defective cartridge actuated devices that they find. The devices are used to launch a pilot out of the aircraft in case of an emergency.
The U.S. Navy has been doing the same with an undisclosed number of their jets as well, grounding F/A-18 Hornets, Super Hornets, E/A-18G Growlers, and T-45 Goshawk, and F-5 Tiger II trainers.
According to a press release by Naval Air Systems Command, the problem “only affects aircraft equipped with [cartridge actuated devices] within a limited range of lot numbers.”
The Navy will not elaborate on numbers of aircraft standing-down, due to operational security reasons.
The Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division (NSWC IHD) supplies the part in question to the Army, Navy, USMC and USAF, and are using “validated radiography procedures” to scan their inventory for properly manufactured parts to send to fleet maintenance centers.
