- By Brandon Drenon and Max Matza
- BBC News, Washington DC
Watch: This is what the missing US F-35 military plane looks like
Military officials have found the remains of an F-35 military jet that went missing after the pilot ejected over South Carolina.
The wreckage of the $100 million (£80 million) plane – which went missing on Sunday afternoon – was discovered in rural Williamsburg County, authorities said.
The pilot ejected from the cockpit and parachuted to safety in a North Charleston neighborhood.
The public was invited to help find the plane.
In a statement Monday, military officials said the debris was found “two hours northeast of Joint Base Charleston.”
Authorities had focused their search around Lakes Moultrie and Marion, north of the city of Charleston – the last known location of the plane.
The debris found was confirmed to be the wreckage of the missing plane, a military spokesperson told the BBC.
“The incident is currently under investigation and we are unable to provide additional details to preserve the integrity of the investigative process,” the Marine Corps said Monday after the search ended.
The public was asked to stay away from the area to allow investigators to do their work.
The fighter jet was left on autopilot when the pilot ejected, a Joint Base Charleston spokesperson told NBC News, adding that it may have been in the air for some time, which which complicated its discovery.
“A plausible sequence of events is that when the pilot ejected, the transponder electronics burned out and thus the military was no longer able to track his position,” said JJ Gertler, principal analyst at Teal Group , a defense consulting firm. the BBC during the search for the plane.
He said it was possible the plane continued to fly after the pilot ejected, but that it was “extremely unlikely” due to “the damage the plane would have sustained from the ejection seat” and “change in aerodynamics when the canopy disappeared”.
The plane, an FB-35B Lightning II, belonged to Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, which works to train pilots, US media reported.
The pilot who ejected was taken to hospital and was in stable condition. A second F-35 flying at the same time returned safely to base.
Joint Base Charleston had posted on X – formerly Twitter – asking for the public’s help in finding the plane.
The request sparked online mockery and criticism from lawmakers.
South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace asked on X, formerly Twitter, “How the hell can you lose an F-35?”
“How come there is no tracking device and we are asking the public to find a plane and return it?”
The aircraft is a stealth aircraft, meaning its airframe, sensors and systems are designed to operate without being detected by enemy radars.
If the plane was flying toward predefined waypoints, the crash location could have been determined by when its fuel would run out.
The known speed and altitude at the time of ejection, along with the amount of fuel it had remaining, could have made it a simple mathematical exercise to determine its location.
Earlier Monday, the U.S. Marine Corps announced a two-day pause in air operations across its military branch this week.
A Marine Corps press release issued Monday said officials plan to “discuss aviation safety issues and best practices” during this week.
He said the missing plane was the third “Class A accident” in the past six weeks – a category of incident that caused more than $2.5 million in damage. He did not give details of the previous incidents.
In August, three Marines died in a crash involving an Osprey tilt-rotor plane and another Marine was killed when his plane crashed during a training exercise near San Diego.
In 2018, the US military temporarily grounded its entire fleet of F-35 aircraft after a crash in South Carolina.
With reporting from BBC arms analyst Chris Partridge
