After Kerala, UK’s F-35 jet makes emergency landing in Japan; Chinese and Russian media mock RAF
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "After Kerala, UK’s F-35 jet makes emergency landing in Japan; Chinese and Russian media mock RAF")
F-35B fighter jet of the UK Royal Air Force at the Kagoshima airport in Japan on Sunday after making emergency landing. Photograph: (Screengrab from video on X)
The malfunction in the F-35 happened when British forces were taking part in a joint drill with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force and the US military. F-35Bs are highly advanced stealth jets, built by Lockheed Martin, and are famous for their short take-off and vertical landing capability.
In a rerun of the Kerala episode, another F-35B fighter jet of the UK Royal Air Force made an emergency landing at the Kagoshima airport in Japan on Sunday after experiencing a mechanical problem mid-air. Kagoshima Airport officials told Kyodo News that the British F-35B stealth fighter jet made an emergency landing due to a malfunction. The emergency landing took place at around 11:30 am (local time) and resulted in closure of the runway for about 20 minutes, which delayed several commercial flights.
The malfunction in the 5th-generation stealth fighter happened when British forces were taking part in a joint drill with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force and the US military. The drill began on 4 August and will continue till Tuesday.
An aircraft carrier strike group was dispatched to the western Pacific by the UK as part of the exercise, Kyodo reported.
Japanese broadcaster NHK said the jet was operating from the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales.
For F-35 jet, this is the second such mishap in less than two months. On 14 June, another UK F-35B from HMS Prince of Wales made an emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram airport in Kerala after a hydraulic fault and remained grounded for more than five weeks.
The British High Commission had publicly thanked Indian authorities for their assistance after repairs were completed. However, the grounding of F-35B in Kerala sparked a wave of humorous memes, and the jet became a tourist attraction and subject of online jokes.
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Chinese, Russian state media indulge in humour
This time, the Chinese and Russian state media are mocking RAF. Russia’s Sputnik India posted on its X account, “British F-35 makes emergency landing... Again. Just weeks after one F-35 was stranded in India, another was forced into an emergency landing at Japan’s Kagoshima Airport. Collecting emergency landings like souvenirs.”
China’s state-run Global Times humorously suggested that the malfunctions “underscored the F-35B’s overly complex systems and highly demanding maintainability”, something UK sailors “could be struggling to deal with in far seas deployments.”
It reminded readers that the jet stranded in India for over five weeks became “a subject of jokes and memes,” raising questions over “how such a modern aircraft could remain stuck in a foreign country for so long.” In a pointed swipe, Global Times claimed the UK’s carrier deployments were “following the US’ global strategy” and dependent on “US-made equipment,” adding that Britain’s naval operational capabilities “are no longer what they once were” and that the recent malfunctions should prompt London to “reconsider its policy of accommodating US interests.”
F-35Bs are highly advanced stealth jets, built by Lockheed Martin, and are prized for their short take-off and vertical landing capability.
