As F-35 flights remain grounded ahead of international debut, doubts rise about jet

By Christian Davenport June 27 at 12:23 PM 

It is supposed to be the headliner of the show next month, when the most-expensive fighter jet ever built makes its international debut in England. There will be plenty of other planes at the Farnborough Air Show, but none will get as much attention as the F-35 Lightning II, the futuristic sleek and stealthy jet that proponents say is unparalleled in the history of human flight.

But this week, an F-35A, the Air Force’s variant of the much-heralded plane, caught fire, forcing the pilot to abort takeoff and leading to the suspension of scores of training flights across the country, as investigators scramble to figure out what went wrong.

The fire in the rear of the plane, which was doused by emergency crews at Eglin Air Force base in Florida on Monday and resulted in no injuries, was the second problem in the past two months. In June, an oil leak discovered by a pilot in flight led to another suspension of flights.