F-35A fire at Mountain Home

An F-35A belonging to the 61st Fighter Squadron from Luke AFB suffered a minor fire during engine start at Mountain Home AFB. The aircraft was one of seven deployed to the base for surface to air training from the 10th to the 24th. It's not clear if the fire was caused by the engine itself, or if it was the result of a problem with a fuel line near the engine. The fire was extinguished quickly, and it's not clear how much damage was suffered by the aircraft. Eight airmen, including the pilot of the aircraft, were taken to the hospital for precautionary checks.

An F-35A caught fire during an exercise at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, the Air Force confirmed to Defense News.

The incident took place at around noon and involved an F-35A aircraft from the 61st Fighter Squadron located at Luke Air Force Base, the service said in a statement. No serious injuries seem to have been sustained by the pilot or nearby crew.

"The pilot had to egress the aircraft during engine start due to a fire from the aft section of the aircraft," Air Force spokesman Capt. Mark Graff said in an email. "The fire was extinguished quickly. As a precautionary measure, four 61st Aircraft Maintenance Unit Airmen, three Airmen from the 366th Maintenance Group and the 61st Fighter Squadron pilot were transported to the base medical center for standard evaluation."

www.defensenews.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Actually, or is it a cover-up for all the booms & military jets people are hearing (maybe seeing)...

Already on edge days after two bombings in New York and New Jersey, residents were startled on Wednesday afternoon by an earthshaking boom that thundered across several neighborhoods in Queens and on Long Island.

New York

"Ran into the house thinking we were under attack" - Mass Sighting of Large Craft, UFO, Fighter Jets in Virginia

Virginia

Idaho
UPDATE: Rumble in the Skies: No Explanation for Loud Boom

Twin Falls Idaho

a reply to: boncho

So an engine fire in Mountain Home Idaho is responsible for a UFO sighting in Virginia, and two booms, one of which was on the East Coast? Uhm....no.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: boncho

So an engine fire in Mountain Home Idaho is responsible for a UFO sighting in Virginia, and two booms, one of which was on the East Coast? Uhm....no.

No no, you are thinking much too 'in the box'. There have been a lot sightings in the last few weeks.

Hypothetically

So we have 3 different cities, sightings, booms, etc. Reports of military jets in the air. Lets say its expected or unexpected (who knows) and one of the Jets is damaged in the ensuing....whatever. (I would put money on unexpected, because they'd probably engage with something else).

In some shape or another the military ends up with a documented bird, damaged. No reasonable explanation as to why. Publish a "fire" story and Voila, paperwork solved. Even leaves a trail of evidence for journalists to chase down in case something "leaks" about it.

You know, because RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region --didn't work out that hunky dory for them last time.

...So.... "Fire in F35 while starting it" is much easier than saying, "F35 fired on and engine nuked by UFO"

Is there something to or someway to confirm a simple fire?

a reply to: boncho

Wow. Still, no. It was a simple accident that had absolutely nothing to do with UFOs, aliens, being shot at or anything else. The F-35 engine has a known issue that has caused a previous fire.

New York is under a TFR for the UN. An aircraft violated the TFR, and fighters were sent to intercept it. You have a boom if one of them breaks the sound barrier doing that. Idaho is home to Mountain Home which is always running exercises, and has several MOAs. You have another boom there. As for the UFO sighting, it's amazing that not one of those rounds that didn't hit the UFO didn't land anywhere they could cause damage, and all apparently landed in open fields where no one was anywhere near them.

Got to love it. A simple malfunction and this site turns it into alien/ufo conspiracy. I guess people have to pay their bills....

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wow. Still, no. It was a simple accident that had absolutely nothing to do with UFOs, aliens, being shot at or anything else. The F-35 engine has a known issue that has caused a previous fire.

Ah okay, my bad. The home of the 61st had a engine fire, nothing more. Hey, do you think it was an electrical fire?

New York is under a TFR for the UN. An aircraft violated the TFR, and fighters were sent to intercept it.

NORAD disagrees they caused the boom though:

We do have, I can tell you, a couple of airborne fighters, but they are flying at such an altitude and such an airspeed that it would not have caused this,” Mr. Kucharek continued. “So at this time there is no indication that it was a Norad asset that caused this noise or sonic boom, as people are calling it.”

As for the UFO sighting, it's amazing that not one of those rounds that didn't hit the UFO didn't land anywhere they could cause damage

What rounds? In the hypothetical dogfight? You might wanna check the emblem for the 61st again. You know what lightning means right?

a reply to: boncho

It wasn't "the home of the 61st", it was an aircraft from the 61st.

NORAD said there was no indication at the time their aircraft did it. If the pilot didn't report that he broke the sound barrier, or it wasn't recorded on radar tapes that he did, then they wouldn't know. It also took them several days to figure out that a military aircraft went supersonic off the east coast the last time it happened. It's not a matter of knowing five minutes later, they have to investigate.

Apparently you didn't bother to read your own link.

We then noticed the fighter jets shooting Tracer rounds at this object which shows up as red laser type beams. The aircraft proceeded toward Honaker Virginia area where it then hovered in the sky above Honaker and emitted a white glowing light all around it.

Tracers are bullets. The F-35 doesn't have anything but a gun, or missiles, so unless it has some miracle weapon it had to have been shooting bullets at it if it even happened. You do know that the official nickname for the F-35 is the Lightning, right? As in lightning bolts on a patch.

You can twist, warp, and try to make this fit as much as you want, but it had nothing to do with UFOs.

I read a few days ago about the F-35's having a issue with the fuel lines which would be a more plausible reason for engine fires. But Alien dog fight sounds way cooler. pew pew! was Will Smith involved?

originally posted by: Orionx2
Got to love it. A simple malfunction and this site turns it into alien/ufo conspiracy. I guess people have to pay their bills....

It's not weird to see an article right after a rash of UFO sightings/mass sightings and mysterious booms, about a "normal fire" where a bunch of people had to be sent to medical afterward?

As a precautionary measure, four 61st Aircraft Maintenance Unit Airmen, three Airmen from the 366th Maintenance Group and the 61st Fighter Squadron pilot were transported to the base medical center for standard evaluation."

Not only that, but joint-strike fighter "instruction" were deployed to one of the areas with UFO activity.... (People familiar with conspiracies will know they often do stuff under "training exercise" or "instruction" programs.

Seven F-35As from Luke AFB, which is one of the bases responsible for joint strike fighter pilot instruction, had deployed to Mountain Home to conduct surface-to-air training from Sept. 10 to 24.

The root cause of the event is under investigation, Graff stated.

At the time of publication, it is still unknown whether the fire originated from the F-35's F135 engine, manufactured by Pratt & Whitney.

Oh, and nicely blamed on the manufacturer for the whole incident, while also declaring "we don't know what happened". Seems like a perfect "nothing to see here, move along now" article.

Now, Im not declaring there is anything more to this. I'm merely mentioning other events happening in the air, multiple sightings and the belief Military Jets were up, same time as UFOs were sighted, and explosions were heard. All around the same timeline. Was it exact same time? I have no idea.

But its all within a short time-spain. It's worth noting these things in case a year from now a whistle blower comes out, say, claims he was flying a sortie at the time, and someone references said article, "nah, it was just an engine fire" Well, now you have the connection to other events that were going on at the time.

Not asking people to speculate a belief, just note other things going on around the same time.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I was a F-16 mechanic for 5 years and if the F-35 has the same starting system, the jet fuel starter (JFS). I have seen a fire from the fuel lines not being tightened properly on the F-16 and I'm guessing that's what it is here. It was in the desert as the shift was ending, they were trying to get a quick engine run in and since they forgot to tighten the lines JP-8 squirted in the JFS exhaust and ignited. That jet was down a good 30 days after that, and that was definitely not a good thing in Iraq.

a reply to: bonsaihorn

Yeah, I'm leaning towards a loose fuel line, or a static leak, based on just the basic information in the article. The engine fire that happened at Eglin happened during takeoff, when the engine was at full power, not just as they started.

a reply to: KungfuStu

The problem was with a cooling system that runs through the wing fuel tank to cool the avionics. It's not likely to cause an engine fire, but it's possible that a piece of the hose got that far.

a reply to: Zaphod58

You can twist, warp, and try to make this fit as much as you want, but it had nothing to do with UFOs.

You are twisting my words to make it sound like Im saying more than I am. 1st off, I noted the Virginia & NY incidents to show there were multiple UFO/Military sightings (or claims of) all around a set period. Suggesting the potential, for some kind of activity in the sky. I finished lastly with a sighting in Idaho

Same place this plane had it's engine fire.

Lightning, on patches can refer to something else, F35 isn't the first plane to named "Lightning", maybe they name it like that because they know the guys want their patches with Thor/Lightning when they are operating electrical-based weapons. (as has been claimed by others who study the patches)

Lightning Weapon



How many years advanced is the Military than the public again?

and finally, NORAD disputes Jets caused the boom over NYC



I never said anyone had to believe it, or even make the connection, or claim that these things are related. I am just noting they did happen all within a similar timeline. Worth noting, that's all.

a reply to: boncho

They were taken to the hospital because RAM was involved. RAM is highly toxic when it burns, so they were taken to the hospital to be checked out just in case the fumes caused problems. You must have read a different article than I did, because no one is blaming anyone yet. It simply stated that there was an engine fire when they started the engine on an aircraft.

They went to a training area. Where are they supposed to go to train?

a reply to: boncho

Idaho is a large training area, and has multiple large bombing ranges, because it's a very open area. Where are they supposed to train?

There are always a lot of military planes sighted around the US.

The F-35 is the second US plane to be called the Lightning. It was named after the P-38 and the English Lightning, both of which were revolutionary aircraft, as this one is. It has nothing to do with lightning weapons.

Did you read the tweet? It said F-22s weren't responsible as they weren't operating over New York, F-15s were. It didn't say that they didn't cause the booms.

Mountain Home is probably the best area in the US to train F-35 crews because of the ranges, and the open area around the base.

Gette’s squadron is visiting from Luke Air Force Base in Arizona to train in Mountain Homes ideal conditions.

"So one of the bread-and-butter missions of the F-35 is to locate and destroy threats on the ground,” Lt. Col. Gette said. “The range up here is world class for that type of environment so we are able to get some world class training up in Mountain Home."

kboi2.com...

originally posted by: boncho

originally posted by: Orionx2
Got to love it. A simple malfunction and this site turns it into alien/ufo conspiracy. I guess people have to pay their bills....

It's not weird to see an article right after a rash of UFO sightings/mass sightings and mysterious booms, about a "normal fire" where a bunch of people had to be sent to medical afterward?

As a precautionary measure, four 61st Aircraft Maintenance Unit Airmen, three Airmen from the 366th Maintenance Group and the 61st Fighter Squadron pilot were transported to the base medical center for standard evaluation."

Not only that, but joint-strike fighter "instruction" were deployed to one of the areas with UFO activity.... (People familiar with conspiracies will know they often do stuff under "training exercise" or "instruction" programs.

Seven F-35As from Luke AFB, which is one of the bases responsible for joint strike fighter pilot instruction, had deployed to Mountain Home to conduct surface-to-air training from Sept. 10 to 24.

The root cause of the event is under investigation, Graff stated.

At the time of publication, it is still unknown whether the fire originated from the F-35's F135 engine, manufactured by Pratt & Whitney.

Oh, and nicely blamed on the manufacturer for the whole incident, while also declaring "we don't know what happened". Seems like a perfect "nothing to see here, move along now" article.

Now, Im not declaring there is anything more to this. I'm merely mentioning other events happening in the air, multiple sightings and the belief Military Jets were up, same time as UFOs were sighted, and explosions were heard. All around the same timeline. Was it exact same time? I have no idea.

But its all within a short time-spain. It's worth noting these things in case a year from now a whistle blower comes out, say, claims he was flying a sortie at the time, and someone references said article, "nah, it was just an engine fire" Well, now you have the connection to other events that were going on at the time.

Not asking people to speculate a belief, just note other things going on around the same time.

The amount of explaining you have to do here is evidence enough... Just stop....

a reply to: boncho

Lightning, on patches can refer to something else,

Want to try again? Use extreme proof if replying.

originally posted by: Gothmog
a reply to: boncho

Lightning, on patches can refer to something else,

Want to try again? Use extreme proof if replying.

I never said I was trying to prove anything. Brilliant straw mans you guys are arguing....