A 14-member team of engineers from the UK has begun assessing a state-of-the-art British fighter jet stuck at an airport in India for more than three weeks now.
The F-35B landed on 14 June at Thiruvananthapuram airport in the southern state of Kerala where it was diverted after it ran into bad weather during a sortie in the Indian ocean.
The plane then reported a technical snag and was unable to return to the HMS Prince of Wales, the Royal Navy’s flagship carrier.
Its prolonged presence on Indian soil has sparked curiosity and raised questions about how such a modern aircraft could remain stranded in a foreign country for so long.
Since the jet’s landing, engineers from HMS Prince of Wales had assessed the aircraft, but they were unable to fix it.
On Sunday, the British High Commission said in a statement that a team of engineers from UK was “deployed to Thiruvananthapuram airport to assess and repair the F-35B aircraft”.
It said the team was “carrying specialist equipment necessary for the movement and repair process”.
Video footage shared by Indian news agencies ANI and PTI showed a British Royal Air Force Airbus landing at Thiruvananthapuram to drop the team of technical experts.
Videos showed the F-35B being towed away to a hangar - the high commission had earlier said they had “accepted the offer to move the craft to the Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility”, but were waiting for equipment to arrive from the UK.
F-35Bs are highly advanced stealth jets, built by Lockheed Martin, and are prized for their short take-off and vertical landing capability.
The $110m (£80m) jet is being guarded around the clock by six officers from the RAF.
The case of the stranded jet has also been raised in the House of Commons.
In India, images of the “lonely F-35B”, parked on the tarmac and soaked by the Kerala monsoon rains, have made it a subject jokes and memes with many suggesting that it does not want to leave the scenic state of Kerala, described as “God’s own country” in tourism brochures.
Experts say if the team of engineers is unable to repair the aircraft and make it fly worthy, it will have to be dismantled and carried out in a bigger cargo plane such as a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.
Source: BBC
- Agencies
