A 14-member team of UK engineers has begun to assess a state-black British fighter jet stuck at an airport in India for more than three weeks.
F -35B landed at Thiruvananthapuram Airport in the southern state of Kerala on 14 June, where it was diverted after escaping in bad weather during a sorty in the Indian Ocean.
The aircraft then reported a technical tingling and was unable to return to the Royal Navy’s leading carrier, HMS Prince of Wales.
Its prolonged presence on Indian soil has given rise to curiosity and has raised questions about how such modern aircraft can be trapped in a foreign country for so long.
Since Jet’s landing, the aircraft was assessed by engineers from HMS Prince of Wales, 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 at Thiruvananthapuram Airport to assess and repair the F -35B aircraft”.
It said that the team was “carrying the necessary expert equipment for the movement and repair process”.
The video footage shared by Indian news agencies Annie and PTI showed a British Royal Air Force Airbus Landing in Thiruvananthapuram to leave the team of technical experts.
The video showed that the F -35B was away from a hanger – the High Commission had earlier stated that he had “accepted the proposal to repair the maintenance and transfer crafts for the maintenance (MRO) facility, but was waiting for the equipment to arrive from the UK.
F-35Bs are highly advanced stealth jets, produced by Lockheed Martin, and their small tech-off and precious for vertical landing capacity.
The $ 110m (£ 80m) jet is being preserved around the clock by six officers from RAF.
The case of trapped jet has also been raised in the House of Commons.
In India, images of “Lonley F -35B” were parked on Termac and soaked with Kerala monsoon rains, with a subject jokes and many suggestions with memes that it does not want to leave the natural state of Kerala, which has been described as the “country of God”.
Experts say that if the team of engineers is unable to repair the aircraft and make it qualified, it will be removed in a large cargo aircraft such as C -17 Globmaster Transport Aircraft such as C -17 Globmaster Transport Aircraft.
