On September 17, 2023, a US Marine Corps pilot flying an F-35 was ejected from his aircraft under unknown circumstances, leaving the approximately $70 million aircraft to continue flying until it crashed in a rural area 60 miles away from where the pilot ejected. The pilot was left stranded in Charleston, South Carolina. He was not seriously injured and received medical aid shortly after landing safely in a Charleston resident’s backyard. The F-35 was declared missing after attempts to track the advanced piece of military equipment failed. A 24-hour search for the missing aircraft ensued, which included government calls for civilian help, and luckily ended in success. The debris field was quickly cordoned off from the public as recovery efforts began.
This is not the first time the US military has lost expensive or dangerous equipment due to accidents or malfunctions. In fact, this incident is tame in comparison to past accidents, which include 32 declassified reports of “Broken Arrows,” the military designation for an accident in which a nuclear weapon is lost or has part of its payload detonated. These events mainly occurred during the Cold War, when Strategic Air Command had US military aircraft armed with nuclear weapons continually flying around US airspace, in order to deter possible threats, as well as allow the United States to quickly punish the offending enemy with our own nuclear arsenal. During these operations, multiple Broken Arrow incidents led to civilian injuries and the release of radioactive materials into areas surrounding the point of impact. Most of these incidents also resulted in the permanent loss of multiple expensive aircrafts, as well as the nuclear weapons on board, including one case in South Carolina. The bomb, which had the uranium portion of its warhead installed, is still buried after it was accidentally released from an aircraft’s bombing bay, leaving it to fall several thousand feet and bury itself in the dirt below. When recovery efforts failed, the government bought the section of land where it landed and made it illegal to dig in the area surrounding the impact site without federal permission.
The majority of these accidents are much less dramatic than crashed planes or malfunctioning bay doors resulting in the loss of an unarmed nuclear weapon. Most losses of military equipment are simply due to military personnel losing or misplacing equipment on accident. Forces are also sometimes forced to leave equipment behind when they are forced to evacuate installations. A recent example of this is what happened last year with the evacuation of Afghanistan, which resulted in the loss of around $7 billion worth of equipment, according to a report from the Department of Defense. These kinds of losses are often unavoidable due to the chaotic nature of military operations, especially in foreign territories, but the accidents that occur over American soil due to malfunctions or personnel failures are preventable.
References
Carballo, R. (2023, September 18). F-35 jet is missing after pilot parachutes free in south carolina. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/18/us/missing-f35-military-jet-charleston.html
CNN, E. K. (2022, April 28). First on CNN: US left behind $7 billion of military equipment in afghanistan after 2021 withdrawal, pentagon report says. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html
Copp, T., & Pollard, J. (2023, September 21). 911 call shows bizarre circumstances of F-35 ejection: “Not sure where the airplane is,” pilot says. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/f35-marines-crash-plane-missing-01cf6ed915544eb50331ccfd9df33933
Department of Defense. (1981). Narrative summaries of accidents involving U.S. nuclear weapons 1950-1980 (pp. 1–43).
Laporta, J. (2021, June 15). A guide to the US military guns most often lost or stolen. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/government-and-politics-business-024ab4bc787e51b49e7107465af77954
Power, T. (1960, September 1). Strategic Air Command. Air & Space Forces Magazine. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0960sac/
Tirpak, J. (2023, January 4). $30 billion F-35 deal will see prices rise, deliveries dip. Air & Space Forces Magazine
