The Air Force has grounded its fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters due to a problem with components of the ejector seats that could prevent the pilot from being able to eject safely during an emergency.
Air Combat Command spokeswoman Alexi Worley told the Washington Examiner on Friday that the stand-down was ordered Thursday, adding that the decision was made “out of an abundance of caution.”
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“ACC’s F-35s do have Martin-Baker ejection seats, and on July 19, began a Time Compliance Technical Directive to inspect all of the cartridges on the ejection seat within 90 days,” she said. “Out of an abundance of caution, ACC units will execute a stand-down on July 29 to expedite the inspection process. Based on data gathered from those inspections, ACC will make a determination to resume operations.”
The stand-down order was reported by Breaking Defense, which said that the faulty components are the cartridge-actuated devices that are used to propel the seat out of an aircraft.
“Since CADs are used in the ejection process, a faulty CAD may not allow all the functions necessary to take place that would allow a complete and safe ejection,” Michael Cisek, a senior associate at the aviation consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, told the outlet. “While the aircraft are flyable, I don’t think too many pilots would be willing to fly knowing they may not be able [to] eject.”
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The Navy also announced earlier this week that they made a similar decision to ground some of its fixed-wing aircraft due to “an ejection seat cartridge actuated device production issue,” a spokesperson for the Naval Air Systems Command told Breaking Defense on Wednesday.
NAVAIR said in a Tuesday press release that it had discovered a problem with the CADs in a “limited range of lot numbers” of F/A-18B/C/D Hornets, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, E/A-18G Growlers, and T-45 Goshawk and F-5 Tiger II training aircraft.
