Ejection seat parachute issues ground 15 F-35s - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Ejection seat parachute issues ground 15 F-35s

Fifteen F-35 Joint Strike Fighters will remain grounded for at least five more days because their ejection seat parachutes were installed backwards, said Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Joint Strike Fighter Program Office.

Another eight aircraft at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., are not affected because they have earlier versions of the ejection seat, in which the parachute is packed correctly, DellaVedova said Tuesday.

The fighters were grounded on Jan. 26 after the mistake was discovered during routine testing, he said,

Six F-35s at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., cannot fly until the new ejection seat components arrive from Britain, where they are made, he said. The other nine aircraft are at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., where they are currently undergoing ground testing.

Another three of the futuristic fighters in production at Lockheed Martin’s F-35 production facility at Fort Worth, Texas, need to be repaired prior to flying, said company spokeswoman Laurie Quincy.

The mistake happened when the Martin Baker Aircraft Corp. in Britain made an error when revising its instructions for packing parachutes on newer ejection seats, Quincy said.

Even though the parachute was packed backwards, it still would have deployed, but the steering levels on the parachute would have been reversed, making it confusing for a pilot to steer, she said.