International Military - An F-35C Lightning II fighter aeroplane suffered a" wharf accident"on the sundeck of the USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea on Monday. That left seven mariners injured while the airman escaped safely, the Navy said was the fifth major accident aboard a stationed carrier since late November.
Following the crash on Carrier Air Wing 2, four other major incidents involving aircraft were reported. Naval Safety Center data shows that the first incident, which passed on November 22, was an in-flight machine fire aboard an F/A-18E Super Hornet that successfully landed.
Two days latterly, an MH-60R Seahawk copter" suddenly" lost its sonar absorption outfit during a training flight. The third incident passed on November 29 and involved another F/A-18E Super Hornet. At that time, a problem with the aeroplane's left machine forced the airman to turn it off and land using another good machine. Eventually, on December 31, a CMV-22B suffered an machine fire while on the sundeck of the Carl Vinson. None of the other four incidents redounded in injury or death.
When asked about the series of accidents, Navy spokespersonLt. Nicholas Lingo said"The five incidents are still under disquisition, and we can not speak of any pattern until the disquisition is complete."
Lingo said the F-35, assigned to Carrier Air Wing 2, crashed on Monday while the Carl Vinson was conducting routine flight operations in the South China Sea. He added that" fresh details and causes of the in-flight crash are being delved."
According to the Navy, the airman was saved by a US military copter and is in stable condition. Of the seven injured mariners, three needed medevac to a medical care installation in Manila, Philippines, and four were treated aboard the aircraft carrier. Lingo said that two of the mariners who were vacated were in stable condition; one is in critical condition. A seaman is still being watched for aboard the carrier; the other three have been released, he added.
The incident passed at a time when Vinson was sharing in two carrier operations, along with the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group, which began Sunday. This is the rearmost of several major exercises that the carrier and its air sect have joined since arriving in the Pacific region in early September. According to a Navy press release, the strike group has joined"MALABAR 2021; MPX 2021; and severalmulti-carrier,multi-country operations, including several confederated carrier group operations in the Philippine Sea."
The deployment is also the first time the new F-35 covert fighter has been stationed aboard an aircraft carrier that the Navy has dubbed the" air sect of the future."