WASHINGTON \u2014 For want of a secure bracket, the F-35B weapons bay caught fire.
“We knew about this problem long before that [incident], and all of our airplanes were being retrofitted with a new bracket,” Bogdan said during a Dec. 19 briefing to reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The engineering work for the bracket retrofit has been finished, but the aircraft affected by the fire, assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 501, had not been modified with the new hardware yet. Instead, aircraft with the original brackets underwent periodic inspections to check whether the bracket is still sturdy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It had passed its previous inspection, but the bracket still became dislodged,” Bogdan said, adding that a new inspection regiment has now been put into place as a result of the mishap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The October incident was the F-35B\u2019s first Class A mishap, which involve loss of life or damage of more than $2 million, reported Defense News sister publication Marine Corps Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because not all aircraft have been modified, B-model pilots are flying with heightened levels of risk, Bogdan acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Yes, there are acknowledged risks, and that would be one of them,” he said. “And until you fix that bracket, every airplane in the B-model that doesn\u2019t have that bracket is going to have to be inspected, and hopefully that bracket remains in place when it\u2019s flying.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just a month earlier, an F-35A caught fire while still on the ground at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. According to an Air Force statement, the fire began emanating from the aft section of the aircraft and was quickly extinguished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
The root cause of the September incident has not yet been made public, but no aircraft were grounded as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More details will likely come to light in the coming months. Lt. Gen. Darryl Roberson, head of Air Education and Training Command, decided this month to start an accident investigation board (AIB), a service spokesman confirmed to Defense News on Tuesday. Usually an AIB is initiated after initial safety investigations conclude, and the process results in a report delineating the cause of a mishap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The root cause of an October F-35B fire was a loose bracket, which \u2014 when functioning properly \u2014 holds electrical wires away from other components in the weapons bay. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":58895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":88,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3297],"class_list":["post-51891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"5KP3VTILFVD4VK32SATXG42JME","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2016\/12\/20\/f-35-chief-loose-bracket-sparked-fire-on-marine-corps-plane\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n