[A]fter the Pentagon grounded its entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets last week following the aircraft’s first crash, Vermont’s political leaders stressed the need to diagnose and remediate the issue that caused the accident, but offered no concerns over plans to make the state’s Air National Guard unit the first to receive the next-generation jets next fall.
In a joint statement, the three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation said “safety must always be the top priority” when deploying a new plane, but offered no new thoughts on whether the news of the crash affected their thinking on the plane’s Vermont basing.
“The Pentagon has said that it will inspect every aircraft for the suspected part,” the statement continued. “They must continue to thoroughly investigate this issue until they have corrected the problem.”
VTDigger submitted written follow-up questions concerning the crash to the offices of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. David Carle, a Leahy spokesman, said “the Defense Department has given assurances that they will keep the delegation fully informed,” and will release a public report sharing the agency’s findings.
Sanders’ spokesperson Dan McLean said: “We have nothing to add beyond the delegation quote which was already provided.”
In a statement, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger expressed concern over the crash, and said his office was closely communicating with Leahy’s on the matter. Weinberger did not indicate whether the crash had changed his previously stated support of the planes, and his office did not respond to follow-up questions.
In a statement, Rebecca Kelley, a spokesperson for Gov. Phil Scott, made clear that the governor still supports the basing.
“Governor Scott strongly supports the economic and security benefits of basing the F-35 with the Air National Guard in Vermont,” Kelley said “He is confident in the protocols the [Department of Defense] has in place to understand the incident and prevent it from occurring again across the fleet.”
The grounding came after a Sept. 28 crash near Beaufort, South Carolina – the first F-35 wreck since the planes were deployed across the globe earlier this year. (In April, a Marine Corps F-35B made an emergency landing when the aircraft fuel light came on.)
An initial assessment from the F-35 Joint Program Office indicated that the September crash was caused by malfunctioning fuel tubes. The Marine Corps pilot safely ejected, but the plane fell from the sky and was destroyed.
The plane model that crashed – the F-35B – is different than the F-35A model expected to arrive in South Burlington next September. It’s unclear if the F-35As use the same type of fuel tube – produced by Pratt & Whitney – that malfunctioned during the September crash.
Guard spokesman Lt. Mikel Arcovitch said in a statement that the incident has had no impact on the timeline of the Vermont F-35 basing, which currently projects 18 of the planes arriving next September.
There are currently 45 enlisted maintenance and logistics airmen and four pilots from Vermont training on the F-35, at locations across the country. Two more pilots are reporting to transition school this month, Arcovitch said.
On Monday, the F-35 joint program office issued a statement that the majority of F-35s had been cleared to fly. “More than 1500 suppliers are on the F-35 program and this is an isolated incident which is quickly being addressed and fixed,” the statement said.
Retired Air Force Col. Rosanne Greco, the leader of Vermont’s F-35 opposition, told VTDigger that she was “alarmed, but not surprised” by the crash.
“The most alarming part is that our politicians are allowing this dangerous aircraft to come to a residential neighborhood,” she said. “This fuel tube is only one problem of many that have been identified with this flight platform.”
VTDigger has previously reported on the various mechanical problems that the plane has experienced for many years. Last year, for instance, an F-35A made an emergency landing at a base in Okinawa, Japan, for unspecified reasons. Less than a month later, an F-35A from the same fleet lost a 2-foot-wide panel during a routine mission near the island. In August, an F-35A faced issues while in flight and made an emergency landing at Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base. In recent years, at least two F-35As have caught fire during routine operations.
In June, the Government Accountability Office released a report identifying more than 100 performance deficiencies, contending the F-35 “saw little improvement in reliability and maintainability over the past year.”
Greco said she was disappointed that the crash didn’t prompt any notable rethinking of the Burlington basing, but said she would continue her fight to block the basing.
In recent months, Greco and her allies have sought a new environmental review for a South Burlington basing, and filed a complaint with the Air Force Inspector General alleging that Vermont guard leaders had broken military regulations that banned politicking in uniform and had improperly pressured Air Force leaders to base the fighter jets in Vermont despite negative projected environmental impacts.
While the prospect of a new environmental review is unclear, the Air Force Inspector General notified Greco in September that it was declining to bring charges against Vermont guard leaders. In a letter obtained by VTDigger, Col. Jeff Hurlbert wrote that the Air Force “spoke with subject matter experts familiar with the F-35 basing process” but found “insufficient evidence to indicate wrongdoing by (Adjutant General Steven Cray) or his subordinate senior officials.”
Greco had provided inspectors with contact information for six officials charged with evaluating Burlington as a potential base. After the investigation was closed, Greco said she reached out to all six officials and spoke with three of them. None of the three said they were contacted by the Inspector General, Greco said.
“The fact that they didn’t speak with these experts causes me to doubt the thoroughness of the Air Force inquiry,” Greco said.
