UK SHIPS IN RACE AGAINST TIME TO RECOVER NAVY JET FROM SEA
▶ Warships patrol accident site to protect aircraft’s highly advanced stealth technology
Britain is racing to find the wreckage of a Royal Navy F-35 jet that crashed in international waters on Wednesday.
Authorities fear that Turkey will seek to salvage highly classified parts of the aircraft, defence analysts told The National.
The skin of the jet would be considered a huge prize, as it could allow rivals to replicate its stealth capabilities, or give them an increased ability to shoot similar aircraft down.
British and Nato warships were assembling to protect the Eastern Mediterranean crash site after the advanced fighter went down as it took off from the flagship aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth on Wednesday.
UK officials said the Ministry of Defence was moving to swiftly recover the fighter.
It is the first time an F-35 has come down in accessible international waters. The pilot safely ejected and was returned to the ship.
Alongside Turkey, Russia is also understood to be keen to scour the sea, with even a fragment of the aircraft’s outer skin being extremely useful.
The latest naval tracking data shows a considerable amount of warship activity south of Crete, with a British Type-45 destroyer on station, alongside a specialist tug.
Warships from Spain and Germany are also in the area and a Norwegian construction support vessel was heading into the waters that could potentially be used to lift the 15-tonne aircraft.
The Queen Elizabeth is alongside in Sicily, 900km away.
Defence sources have indicated that Turkey is “extremely keen” to find parts, particularly after America denied sales of the fighter to Ankara.
Any technology recovered could also be used by Turkey’s burgeoning defence industry to develop its own advanced aircraft.
Gareth Jennings, aviation editor for Jane’s Defence Weekly, said Turkey would be hoping to find out some of the technical secrets of the F-35.
“Both the British government and the Americans will be very keen that this aircraft is recovered,” he said.
The UK Ministry of Defence is worried about the Russians, who have a naval base in Tartus, Syria, more than a day’s sail away. There is also a possibility that civilian ships could recover debris and sell it to foreign powers, including China.
“This is a concern,” said a military source.
“The Lightnings [F-35s] have modern electronic scanned array radar, an electro-optical sensor and night vision equipment. If you can discover how that works you can work out how close the jet has to come to its target.”
He said the aircraft’s flight recorders would reveal highly classified performance information on the F-35.
“There’s plenty of actors in that region who would love to get their hands on this aircraft.”
The military will be hoping that measures introduced to protect the F-35 from reverse engineering will be enough to prevent its secrets being revealed.
But even a scrap of its skin could prove useful, said Justin Bronk, air power expert at the RUSI think tank.
“One of the big innovations on F-35 is its radar absorbing protein which is very resilient and is a huge advance,” he said. “They will also want to recover the hardware in terms of sensors, radar, emitters, targeting system and lenses.
“I’m sure Russia would love to get its hand on this. The US and British will certainly be keen to get the crash area secured and the recovery done as soon as they can. If they can’t raise it, then they’ll probably destroy it in place.”
Authorities fear that Turkey will seek to salvage highly classified parts of the aircraft, defence analysts say