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HILL AIR FORCE BASE — A glitch in the F-35A fighter jet's air data systems is to blame for a crash at Hill Air Force Base last year, investigators determined in a new report released Thursday.
The incident happened as the 388th Fighter Wing wrapped up a four-ship formation flight exercise shortly after 6 p.m. on Oct. 19. The F-35A that crashed was assigned to be the third to land at the base, according to the U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command report.
As the pilot, who was not identified by name in the report, began to land, he started experiencing "a slight rumbling" to his aircraft from wake turbulence caused by the preceding jet, the report notes. The disturbance caused "erroneous inputs" within the plane's air data application, which then caused its flight controls to "not respond correctly to the actual current conditions" of the F-35A.
The pilot tried to take over, but the aircraft's manual flight controls "did not correctly respond to the pilot's inputs," officials added.
"Recognizing that the (aircraft) was not responding appropriately to control inputs, the (pilot) selected full afterburner power to attempt to recover to controlled flight," the report states. "Due to low altitude, low airspeed and sideslip flight path of the (aircraft), the (pilot) was unable to recover the aircraft and initiated ejection."
The pilot ejected a little north of the Hill Air Force Base's fence just before the plane crashed. The $166.3 million jet was destroyed on impact; however, the pilot was able to eject safely and only suffered minor injuries and call for emergency assistance on a cellphone from where he landed. He was treated at a Utah hospital and released that night.
Crash investigators ultimately determined that the crash was caused by air data system errors and "there was no opportunity to recover the aircraft to controlled flight."
While this caused the crash, investigators wrote that the landing spacing between the F-35A planes was a "significant" contributing factor to the crash. They found that the jets were too close to be "in accordance with wake turbulence procedures."
The report does not say whether there were any disciplinary actions tied to the contributing factor.
The incident created a clamor among residents who live by the base. One man told KSL-TV a day after the crash that he knew something was wrong when he heard a noise from the jet that he had never heard before just before the pilot ejected. Those who saw the crash or the aftermath said they were relieved that the pilot was OK.
