Pilot ejected Sunday over North Charleston as MCAS Beaufort-based fighter had ‘mishap’
By Mike McCombs
The Island News
After a roughly 28-hour search finally located the wreckage of an MCAS Beaufort-based F-35B that crashed in rural Williamsburg County on Sunday afternoon, the search for answers has begun.
In a teleconference Tuesday afternoon, MCAS Beaufort Commanding Officer Col. Mark D. Bortnem confirmed that search will likely last months.
“We have the aircraft, we’ve located the aircraft, where the (crash) site is, and now the investigation starts,” Bortnem said. “And so what we’re really looking at really starts at the crash site, looking at the wreckage that’s there, and then we’ll continue on. You can expect this investigation will last, like all of our investigations do, for several months. And the objective is to find out all of the details that occurred, and that will only happen with a detailed investigative process that looks at the wreckage, talks to the pilot, and talks to really every facet of what happened on that particular day.”
In what the Marines have labeled a “mishap,” a pair of F-35s were flying Sunday over North Charleston in the vicinity of Joint Base Charleston, when at about 1:30 p.m., one pilot was forced to eject. The pilot landed safely in North Charleston and was transported to a local medical facility where he was in stable condition at last update Tuesday.
No further details on the pilot’s condition have been made available, as of press time.
The second pilot landed at Joint Base Charleston, while the first plane, without a pilot and with autopilot reportedly engaged, continued to fly.
At some point, Joint Base Charleston was unable to track the F-35B Lightning II.
“We don’t know anything about the plane,” a Joint Base Charleston spokesperson told The Island News Sunday night by phone.
The Washington Post reported Monday the jet’s transponder was not working “for some reason that we haven’t yet determined,” according to Jeremy Huggins, a spokesman at Joint Base Charleston.
Joint Base Charleston’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted “Based on the jet’s last-known position and in coordination with the FAA, we are focusing our attention north of JB Charleston around Lake Moultrie and Lake Marion.”
Still, by Monday afternoon the plane had not been found. Teams from Joint Base Charleston, MCAS Beaufort, the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing out of MCAS Cherry Point, Navy Region Southeast, the FAA, the Civil Air Patrol, as well as local, county, and state law enforcement across South Carolina had been working to locate the fighter.
During the search, Joint Base Charleston asked that anyone with information that might help their recovery teams call the Base Defense Operations Center at 843-963-3600.
Finally, after 6 p.m., Monday, more than a day after the pilot ejected, personnel from Joint Base Charleston and MCAS Beaufort, working with local authorities, located the plane’s debris field in Williamsburg County, roughly two hours northeast of Joint Base Charleston.
Authorities asked members of the community to avoid the area as the recovery team secures the debris field. The Marine Corps is beginning the recovery process.
“One of the things I’m asking is for any people in the area and anybody from here in the Lowcountry to remain away from the crash site,” Bortnem said Tuesday. “And that’s for two reasons. For their safety, and also so we don’t compromise the investigative process and the crash site itself. We’ve established a security area that’s around the crash site, including the air space around the crash site, so we ask that people remain away. Keep away personally, and don’t try to fly drones or anything else around that particular area.”
With three aviation mishaps over the past three weeks, Acting Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric M. Smith, directed all Marine Corps aviation units to “conduct a two-day stand down in operations this week to discuss aviation safety matters and best practices.”
“During the stand down, aviation commanders will lead discussions with their Marines focusing on the fundamentals of safe flight operations, ground safety, maintenance and flight procedures, and maintaining combat readiness,” the order reads. “This stand down is being taken to ensure the service is maintaining operational standardization of combat-ready aircraft with well-prepared pilots and crews. This stand down invests time and energy in reinforcing the Marine aviation community’s established policies, practices and procedures and ensures Marine Corps remains a ready and highly-trained fighting force.”
Bortnem did not field questions during or after his Tuesday teleconference with local news media, but instead encouraged members of their press to email questions to him through Lt. Lyndsay Cribb, Deputy Director of Communication Strategy and Operations for MCAS Beaufort.
As of press time, The Island News had not yet received responses to its queries.
The F-35s involved in Sunday’s mishap are with the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron (VMFAT) 501 of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing and based at MCAS Beaufort. They were carrying no live weapons when the mishap occurred.
The F-35 is manufactured by Lockheed-Martin and cost roughly $80 million apiece. This is the second crash of an F-35 based at MCAS Beaufort.
On Sept. 28, 2018, a pilot ejected safely from an F-35 Lightning II with VMFAT 501 before it crashed on uninhabited Little Barnwell Island.
The crash was attributed to a defective fuel tube. The Marines’ entire fleet of F-35s was grounded until it could be inspected and the defective parts eliminated.
This is also the second incident involving MCAS Beaufort-based planes in the past month.
Maj. Andrew Mettler was killed late Thursday, Aug. 24, when his F/A-18D Hornet crashed during a training flight in the vicinity of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California. That crash is still under investigation.
Mettler was assigned to Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA(AW)) 224, Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 31, 2nd MAW stationed on Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. The squadron was participating in Service Level Training Exercise 5-23.
Mike McCombs is the Editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
