US Missing F-35 fighter jet disappears over South Carolina after pilot ejects in 'mishap' - The pilot parachuted over South Carolina but their fighter jet still hasn't been found by authorities. (Find my Iphone feature not enabled)

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Missing F-35 fighter jet disappears over South Carolina after pilot ejects in 'mishap'


The United States Marine Corps has launched a full investigation after an F-35 fighter jet has gone missing after a plot ejected over South Carolina.

The pilot was in a Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort F-35 when the incident occurred on Sunday, according to a spokesperson for the Marine Corps.

The pilot ejected over North Charleston, South Carolina at around 2pm. He was taken to a local hospital where he was in stable condition, said Major Melanie Salinas. The pilot’s name has not been released.

Based on the missing plane’s location and trajectory, the search for the F-35 Lightning II jet was focused on Lake Moultrie and Lake Marion, said Senior Master Sgt. Heather Stanton at Joint Base Charleston. Both lakes are north of North Charleston.

A South Carolina Law Enforcement Division helicopter joined the search for the F-35 after some bad weather cleared in the area, Stanton said. Military officials appealed in online posts Sunday for any help from the public in locating the aircraft.
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F-35 planeThe F-35 is manufactured by Lockheed Martin (Image: Getty)

Given that the pilot was engaging in a "military exercise" at the time of the disappearance of the F-35 fighter jet, speculation continues to abound about what, exactly, the pilots were doing in the area. Officials are still investigating why the pilot ejected, authorities said.

The pilot of a second F-35 returned safely to Joint Base Charleston, Salinas said. The planes and pilots were with the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 based in Beaufort, not far from South Carolina’s Atlantic coast.

Officials have asked for the public's assistance in finding the downed jet, something which local Congresswoman Nacy Mace blasted on social media.

Joint Base Charleston said in a tweet: "We’re working with MCASBeaufortSC to locate an F-35 that was involved in a mishap this afternoon. The pilot ejected safely. If you have any information that may help our recovery teams locate the F-35, please call the Base Defense Operations Center at 843-963-3600."

Nancy Mace responded: "How in the hell do you lose an F-35? How is there not a tracking device and we’re asking the public to what, find a jet and turn it in?"
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F-35 JetThe F-35 jet was still missing late Sunday afternoon (Image: Getty)

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Daily Express US has reached out to a representative for the United States Marine Corps for comment.

Officially known as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, the missing fighter jet is part of a family of stealth multirole combat aircraft.

Considered one of the elite fighter jets, these stealth bombers are an essential tool of war for the American military.

Joint Base Charleston is a huge 20,000-acre base and shares space - including runways - with Charleston International.

Around 10,000 active service members live on the enormous base.

Follow our social media accounts here on facebook.com/ExpressUSNews and @expressusnews

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Source : https://www.express.co.uk/news/us/1813898/breaking-marine-pilot-ejects-f35-charleston
 
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911 call shows bizarre circumstances of F-35 ejection: 'Not sure where the airplane is,' pilot says
Associated Press (archive.ph)
By Tara Copp and James Pollard
2023-09-22 02:22:34GMT

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A military pilot whose advanced fighter jet went temporarily missing over the weekend is heard repeatedly requesting an ambulance in a perplexing 911 call from the South Carolina home where he had parachuted to safety, according to an audio recording released Thursday to The Associated Press.

The four-minute recording captures the bizarre circumstances for the three unidentified people involved: a North Charleston resident calmly explaining that a pilot just parachuted into his backyard, the pilot who doesn’t know what became of his F-35 jet, and a puzzled dispatcher trying to make sense of it all.

“We got a pilot in the house, and I guess he landed in my backyard, and we’re trying to see if we could get an ambulance to the house, please,” the resident said.

The pilot, who said he was 47, reported feeling “OK” after falling what he estimated was 2,000 feet. Only his back hurt, he said. The resident said the pilot looked fine.

“Ma’am, a military jet crashed. I’m the pilot. We need to get rescue rolling,” the pilot said. “I’m not sure where the airplane is. It would have crash landed somewhere. I ejected.”

Later in the call, he made another plea for medical help.

“Ma’am, I’m a pilot in a military aircraft, and I ejected. So I just rode a parachute down to the ground. Can you please send an ambulance?” the pilot said.

The Marines have described the pilot as an experienced aviator with decades of experience in the cockpit.

The F-35 crashed Sunday after a malfunction prompted the pilot to eject over Charleston and land in the residential backyard not far from Charleston International Airport.

The fighter jet, which the Marine Corps said was at an altitude of only about 1,000 feet (300 meters), kept flying for 60 miles (100 kilometers) until it crashed in a rural area near Indiantown. It took more than a day to locate the wreckage.

In a separate eight-minute dispatch call released Thursday to the AP, an unidentified official tried explaining that they had “a pilot with his parachute” but no information about what happened to his plane or word of a crash. He said “the pilot lost sight of it on his way down due to the weather.”

The official also recalled hearing a “rather loud noise” about 25 minutes prior that “sounded something like a tornado, possibly a plane.”

The Marine Corps said Thursday that a feature on fighter jets intended to protect pilots in emergencies could explain how the F-35 managed to continue its travels. They said that while it was unclear why the jet kept flying, flight control software would have worked to keep it steady if there were no longer a pilot’s hands on the controls.

“If the jet is stable in level flight, the jet will attempt to stay there. If it was in an established climb or descent, the jet will maintain a 1G state in that climb or descent until commanded to do something else,” the Marine Corps said in a statement. “This is designed to save our pilots if they are incapacitated or lose situational awareness.”

Other questions about the crash remained, notably why the plane wasn’t tracked as it continued flying over South Carolina and how it could take more than a day to find a massive fighter jet that had flown over populated, although rural, areas.

The Marines said features that erase a jet’s secure communications in case of an ejection — a feature designed to protect both the pilot’s location and the plane’s classified systems — may also have complicated efforts to find it.

“Normally, aircraft are tracked via radar and transponder codes,” the Marines said. “Upon pilot ejection, the aircraft is designed to erase (or ‘zeroize’) all secure communication.”

The plane would have kept broadcasting an identifier on an open channel to identify itself as friend or foe — but even on an unclassified communications channel air traffic control may not have been able to pick up the signal depending on how powerful its radar was, the weather at the time, how high the plane was flying and the terrain, the Marines said. They said thunderstorms and low cloud ceilings further hampered the search for the plane.

“When coupled with the F-35’s stealth capabilities, tracking the jet had to be done through non-traditional means,” the service said in its statement.

The incident is still under investigation and results from an official review board could take months.

However, the Marines said the feature that kept the plane flying may not only have saved the life of the pilot but of others on the ground.

“The good news is it appeared to work as advertised. The other bit of silver lining in this case is that through the F-35 flying away it avoided crashing into a densely populated area surrounding the airport, and fortunately crashed into an empty field and forested area,” the statement said.
 
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wtfNeedSignUp said:
I bet on yet another diversity hire wasting tens of millions of government money
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I don't know what's funnier, the military industrial complex suffering the very rot they cultivated for cheap resources or the rot culminating into retards that chop off their cocks and are just a financial burden on the complex itself.

I'm honestly just surprised everything is accelerating so fast, but then again maybe boomers were just retards.
 
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The fighter jet, which the Marine Corps said was at an altitude of only about 1,000 feet (300 meters), kept flying for 60 miles (100 kilometers) until it crashed in a rural area near Indiantown. It took more than a day to locate the wreckage.
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Yup, that's what I thought. It made no sense otherwise.

Someone is going to have a LOT of explaining to do.
 
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Pride Month flyby celebrates LGBTQ community​

  • Published June 26, 2020
  • By Senior Airman Leala Marquez
  • 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --
Maj. Tyler McBride, 62nd Fighter Squadron F-35A Lightning II instructor pilot, and Capt. Justin Lennon, 56th Training Squadron F-35 instructor pilot, performed a Pride Month flyby over Luke Air Force Base, June 26, 2020 to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
Pride month was created in 1999 by President Bill Clinton to recognize the gay and lesbian community and has since been expanded to include the bisexual and transgender community.
“Pride month is an opportunity to celebrate the progress that we’ve made as an LGBTQ+ community,” said McBride. “It’s an opportunity to be thankful for, in my case my family and my little kid, things that weren’t possible even just 10 years ago.”
McBride and Lennon executed the flyby over base as part of a routine training flight in support of a 62nd FS instructor upgrade mission.
“Our mission here today is in support of the mission here at Luke Air Force Base; to train the world’s most capable fighter pilots,” said Lennon. “I think that’s significant in recognizing day-in and day-out what the thousands of LGBTQ+ service members do throughout the Air Force.”
The dedicated flight was made possible by the perseverance of McBride and Lennon and by the leadership’s commitment to inclusion.
“I was super excited they came and asked me,” said Lt. Col. Chris Hubbard, 62nd FS commander. “Ten years ago there was two members of my squadron who couldn’t openly be who they are, now they can. I think it’s pretty cool to mark that occasion.”
In 1982, a complete ban of gays in the military was set in place and under it nearly 17,000 men and women were discharged in the next decade. The complete ban was then replaced by Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 1993, a policy prohibiting service while openly gay. An estimate of over 13,000 men and women were discharged during its 18-year tenure.
“When I first went to the Air Force Academy in 2006, as a young 18-year-old kid, I struggled with the idea that I couldn’t serve and be who I was but I knew that we would get there,” said McBride. “So now we have an Air Force that is inclusive and is actually made up of the members who we serve. That’s important, whether it’s race, creed, sexual orientation, man or woman, we have to be a representation of the people who we serve; every American.”
After 29 years, the Department of Defense began the journey towards inclusion and acceptance. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed in 2011 and in 2013, the DoD extended spousal and family benefits to same-sex marriages.
“It makes me proud knowing that the Air Force goes out of its way to accept both myself and Major McBride based on our sexual orientation, but on a larger and grander scale it makes me proud to serve in an Air Force who’s demographic is representative of the demographics of the United States,” said Lennon.
Throughout national and Air Force history, minority groups have been motivated movers of progress. LGBTQ+ Pride Month and McBride’s and Lennon’s flyby celebrate the movements that make inclusion possible.
“While the LGBTQ+ community has a long way to go in the fight for equality, we also have a lot to celebrate and the purpose of this flight is to do just that, celebrate all the efforts of progressive generations that got us to June of 2020,” said McBride.
 
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Anyone that unfortunately spends any time outside of strictly learning materials on jewtube, you might come across their crude imitations of actual alt-web paul reveres. This is one that keeps coming up, Ryan Macbeath. Pretty open about his background, which means he's lying about a majority of it.

Fancies himself quite the deboonker. Self-described "journalist" (upper left in this screenshot from the vid of his linkedin). He hocks his substack constantly at least.

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Always is wearing that necklace. Hmm oh. Oh what symbol is that. Wow. How incredibly gracious of the chosen to inform the normals how to think.

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The pilot ejected over North Charleston, South Carolina at around 2pm. He was taken to a local hospital where he was in stable condition, said Major Melanie Salinas. The pilot’s name has not been released.
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The War Zone: Sacked Marine Pilot Whose F-35B Flew Without Him After Ejecting Gives His Side Of The Story (archive)

Charles Del Pizzo has finally given his version of the bizarre 2023 incident that resulted in his jet flying for dozens of miles without him in it before crashing.

Howard Altman
Posted 2025-03-31 at 23:06:52 UTC

The Marines partially blamed Charles “Tre” Del Pizzo for the loss of his F-35B Joint Strike Fighter that flew pilotless for nearly 12 minutes before slamming into the ground following his ejection back in September 2023. Now the 48-year-old retired colonel is giving his side of the story.

In a truly amazing piece by Post and Courier reporter Tony Bartelme, Del Pizzo pushed back on the Marine Corps’ findings, saying he was essentially blinded in bad weather by cascading equipment malfunctions while returning to Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, from a training sortie over the Atlantic Ocean.

Before the incident, Del Pizzo was putting the jet through its paces as he was learning its strengths and weaknesses before taking command of VMX-1, a key operational test and evaluation squadron in Yuma, Arizona. The mishap occurred as Del Pizzo was attempting an instrument landing in the F-35B’s vertical mode in zero-visibility conditions during a raging storm. Unlike the Air Force’s F-35A and the Navy F-35C carrier variant, the B version flown by the Marines possesses short takeoff, vertical landing (STOVL) capabilities, allowing it to take off, land and hover in a manner similar to the AV-B8 Harrier jets that Del Pizzo used to fly.

Both the Marine Corps’ final report on the mishap and Del Pizzo’s version note problems with the nearly half-million-dollar helmet that displayed the jet’s speed, altitude and targeting information. It is the severity of the malfunctions and how much it contributed to Del Pizzo’s decision to punch out of the aircraft on Sept. 17, 2023 where the two accounts greatly differ. Two other Marine investigations into the incident backed up Del Pizzo’s contention (more on those later).

“Contributing factors to the mishap included an electrical event during flight, which induced failures of both primary radios, the transponder, the tactical air navigation system, and the instrument landing system; and the probability that the helmet-mounted display and panoramic cockpit display were not operational for at least three distinct periods,” the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) stated last year in a press release announcing the results of the third and final investigation into the incident. “This caused the pilot to become disoriented in challenging instrument and meteorological conditions.”

“The investigation concluded that the mishap occurred due to pilot error,” the release continued. “The pilot incorrectly diagnosed an out-of-controlled flight emergency and ejected from a flyable aircraft, albeit during a heavy rainstorm compounded with aircraft electrical and display malfunctions.”

F35BCrashSummary.webp
A timeline of events compiled by the Marines for their Command Investigation into the Sept. 17, 2023 mishap. (USMC)

Del Pizzo said he had no choice but to eject. Starting suddenly shortly after 1:30 p.m., the helmet failed three times in 41 seconds, the now-retired Marine pilot stated.

At first, he said his helmet flickered, then “the visor erupted in flashes of alerts,” Bartelme wrote. “Failures in flight control systems, avionics, cooling, navigation, GPS, communications. Audio alerts sounded: whoop, whoop, whoop. Then the helmet and main displays went dark; the audio alerts stopped. About 15 seconds had passed.”

About 15 seconds later, the helmet failed for a second time as the jet was in clouds about 750 feet off the ground and descending in vertical mode at about 800 feet per minute. He opted to execute a “missed approach procedure” and get away from the ground.

Del Pizzo “pulled back the stick to climb, pushed the throttle forward for thrust,” Bartelme wrote. “Raised the landing gear. Pressed a button that converts the jet from vertical mode to conventional. Then the helmet display went dark again, as if rebooting. He tried to radio his wingman, the control tower. Nothing. Coms out. Then it flashed on, along with another thunderstorm of alerts, more than 25 messages telling him that the jet was in deep trouble and getting worse. Whoop, whoop, whoop.”

Just 11 seconds later, the equipment failed again, Del Pizzo stated to Bartelme.

“The helmet and main display failed a third time, differently now, as if powering down for good,” Bartelme wrote. “Instruments gone, a sea of gray outside his window. Is the plane responding? He pulled the throttle back. He glanced at the small backup panel between his legs. He heard what sounded like a motor spooling down. The engine? He felt the nose of the aircraft tilt upward. He felt a falling sensation. He still couldn’t see the ground. Was he still over the base? Over the trees?”

“Forty-one seconds. Decide, act: The jet’s going into the trees, and I’m going with it. In one quick motion, he reached between his legs for the yellow handle, put his left hand over his right wrist. And pulled.”

You can hear audio feeds from emergency responders and air traffic control audio of the incident below.





Del Pizzo was injured by the ejection as shards of metal dug into his neck from the canopy blown open by explosives. He was hurt some more when his helmet and face mask were ripped off by the force of the wind. He also broke his back.

He initially feared he would be killed by the out-of-control jet falling on top of him as both came back to Earth.

“I remember feeling the precipitation on my face, and then just being pulled back as the drogue chute opened and slowed me down,” Del Pizzo noted “And I could hear the engine noise from the airplane. With my helmet off, it was pretty loud. What I heard was complete chaos. Things falling around me. And that’s when I thought the airplane is going to come down and hit me, because I felt like the airplane was out of control, right? I thought the airplane is going to hit me, and I’m going to die here in this parachute.”

However, he said his biggest concern wasn’t for himself.

“Uppermost in his mind as he talked to the dispatcher and arriving paramedics: What happened to the jet?” Bartelme wrote.

“My biggest fear was that I’d hurt someone,” Del Pizzo told him.


Unbeknownst to him at the time, however, the jet continued flying unmanned for another “11 minutes and 21 seconds before impacting in a rural area approximately 64 nautical miles northeast of the airfield in Williamsburg County, South Carolina,” the Marines said in their press release last year. “The investigation concludes the mishap aircraft’s extended unmanned flight was due to stability provided by the F-35’s advanced automatic flight-control systems.”

The aircraft was discovered more than 24 hours later, crashed in a heavily wooded area.

“The mishap resulted in no ground-related injuries, but it did result in property damage in the form of lost forested land and crops,” the Marines noted in their press release.

F35BCrashpicsJ.webp
Part of the lift fan, nose landing gear, and other debris found in the area where the F-35B impacted the ground. (USMC crash investigation document)


The exact cause of the electrical malfunction may never be publicly known, because the Marines redacted it for “national security purposes,” Bartelme pointed out.

“Unredacted portions ruled out some causes, though,” he wrote. “Thunderstorms were in the area, but bolts at the time of the mishap were 20 miles away and couldn’t have fried the plane’s electronics. Investigators noted that the aircraft entered heavy rain five minutes before Del Pizzo ejected. But a Marine spokesperson said its investigation found no evidence that rainwater caused the electrical malfunction.”

The F-35 fleet as a whole experienced issues with lightning over concerns about the aircraft’s fuel system. You can read more about that here.

The Marines’ final investigation report said that “there were no punitive actions recommended” as a result of this mishap. However, more than a year later, the Marine Corps relieved Del Pizzo of command of VMX-1.

VMX-1J.webp
U.S. Marines with Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron (VMX) 1 pose for a photo at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, March 12, 2025. VMX-1 is responsible for assessing all Marine Corps aviation systems and platforms, contributing to the development of Marine aviation tactics, techniques, and procedures. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Christian Radosti)

The decision was made even though two of three Marine investigations into the incident concluded that Del Pizzo was not at fault, the Post and Courier explained. That conclusion was based on statements from Del Pizzo, officials knowledgeable about the reports’ contents and documents obtained by the publication through open records laws.

“Del Pizzo’s aircraft experienced a significant electrical malfunction, one that knocked out key systems — including displays and navigation aids he needed to land in severe weather,” the newspaper noted. “Knobs to radios weren’t working, making it difficult to contact air traffic controllers or his wingman for guidance. A small backup display was partially functional, but Del Pizzo had to look down to see it.”

This and zero-visibility conditions “likely contributed to a phenomenon known as spatial disorientation, where your inner ear tricks you into feeling that you’re dizzy or falling,” Bartelme’s story continued.

The Navy Aviation Mishap Board and the Field Flight Performance Board “each noted that nothing in the military’s training and simulator work prepared pilots for a crescendo of systems failures in severe weather at a low altitude,” according to the Post and Courier. “In fact, the F-35B’s flight manual said, ‘the aircraft is considered to be in out of controlled flight (OCF) when it fails to respond properly to pilot inputs,” adding, “if out of control below 6,000 feet AGL (above ground level): EJECT.’”

Both of those investigations concluded that most highly experienced pilots with similar levels of experience in an F-35 would have punched out of the plane. One even lauded Del Pizzo for his handling of the event. After the accident, superiors also praised Del Pizzo for his command of VMX-1

Still, last October, he was suddenly and immediately relieved of command, based on the service’s Command Investigation, the third of the three that looked into the accident, Bartelme reported. The Marines explained the sudden and immediate relief of command was due to a “loss of trust and confidence.”

Del Pizzo, caught off guard and hurt by the decision, opted to retire given that his future options in the Marine Corps would be severely limited.

F35BCrashRetirementJ.webp
U.S. Marine Corps Col. Jared K. Stone, left, commanding officer, Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Yuma, and retired Col. Charles W. Del Pizzo and his family conduct the proper procedures during the playing of the national anthem during the opening ceremony of the Yuma Airshow at MCAS Yuma, Arizona, March 15, 2025. During the Yuma Airshow, Del Pizzo was honored for 32 years of service. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Jade K. Venegas)

Asked by The War Zone for a response to the Post and Courier story, the Marines offered the following:

“The Commandant of the Marine Corps continually assesses matters associated with commanders and their units. Following his detailed review last August of the command investigation into the 17 September 2023 F-35 mishap, he made the decision to relieve the Commanding Officer of Marine Operational Test & Evaluation Squadron 1 (VMX-1) at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, due to the unique mission of VMX-1.”

Despite everything, Del Pizzo remains a fan of the controversial F-35 and its technology. However, he is concerned that the outcome of his situation will send the wrong message to other pilots.

“We needed to take a hard look at that to prevent it from happening again,” Del Pizzo told Bartelme. “In aviation, we have a culture. When there are errors, when things don’t go as planned, we learn from them. If you don’t do that, then you have a culture of fear. And if you have a culture of fear, then people are going to be paralyzed and not be able to make decisions. And that’s how people end up getting hurt. That’s how people end up getting killed.”
 
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The Mass Shooter Ron Soye said:
“The pilot incorrectly diagnosed an out-of-controlled flight emergency and ejected from a flyable aircraft, albeit during a heavy rainstorm compounded with aircraft electrical and display malfunctions.”
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Man, gotta love the Green Weenie, eh Kiwis? Turns out its perfectly safe to be in an airplane with malfunctioning electronics and no visibility.
 
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Him being fired is tragic and pretty outrageous.

The key to and training for battling spatial disorientation is trusting your instruments.. Which is exactly what he couldn't do, and in some cases didn't have! What did they expect?!

I guess the only good things to come out are that nobody got hurt and some conformation of the robustness of the plane's flight control and safety system. Remained airborne for 10+ minutes and went ~65 miles not just without a pilot but after ejection and loss of canopy.. Not to mention a small bomb/rocket going off inside it.


AllieKat said:
This is why digitizing everything is dumb. Some things like instruments need to be at least have backup analog modes.
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Not just dumb but INSANE and dangerous. (not just in state of the art fighter jets either) Think about how easy this would have been resolved if so.
 
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