F-35B bird strike at Marine air station in Japan does over $2 million in damage

An F-35B Lightning II with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 departs Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Sept. 18, 2017. An F-35B with the same squadron was damaged by a birdstrike at Iwakuni on May 7, 2019. (AARON HENSON/U.S. MARINE CORPS)
An F-35B Lightning II with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 departs Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Sept. 18, 2017. An F-35B with the same squadron was damaged by a birdstrike at Iwakuni on May 7, 2019. (AARON HENSON/U.S. MARINE CORPS)

F-35B bird strike at Marine air station in Japan does over $2 million in damage

by Seth Robson
Stars and Stripes

A bird strike has caused more than $2 million damage to a Japan-based Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II fighter, according to a U.S. military spokesman.

“On May 7, 2019, an F-35B with Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing aborted take-off due to a bird strike at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni and safely taxied off the runway,” Capt. Marco Valenzuela, a spokesman for the Iwakuni-based Marine Aircraft Group 12, said in an email Friday.

Valenzuela did not state whether the aircraft was in the air or on the ground when the strike happened. He did not state what type of bird struck the F-35B.

Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/1.581389

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