[dfox]

The article is somewhat sensationalistic. If you read the actual report you will find out that:

The pilot was not part of the conference call!

What froze was not hydraulic fluid for actuators (in some hydraulic line), but hydraulic fluid in the shock absorbers.

The last paragraph of the article and seems to be missing a few words and reads as the investigators blaming the people directly involved, which is essentially a complete opposite of what conclusions of the report say.

[LeifCarrotson]

If you want to read the actual report, it's not linked from the CNN article, but it's available here:

https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....

Edit: While CNN says the air force blamed the crash on ice in the hydraulic lines, it's obvious that ice can't be legally culpable. The report actually says:

> Additionally, the [Accident Investigation Board] president found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that crew decision making including those on the in-flight conference call, lack of oversight for the Hazardous materials program, and lack of adherence to maintenance procedures for hydraulic servicing were substantially contributing factors.

They note further down that "The 355th FGS hazardous materials program (HAZMAT) program suffered from insufficient manning and frequent supervision changes at times relevant to the mishap." Basically, they had a barrel of hydraulic oil that sat outside and no one took care of it.

Also interesting is the 6 February 2025 incident, where another aircraft, barely a week after the one that crashed, had the same issue. They tested it inside a heated hangar, then outside in the 15F cold where they reproduced the weight-on-wheels sensor malfunctions, then brought it back in and drained the hydraulic fluid...there's a TON of water in those lines! I'm more familiar with industrial hydraulics in factories and earth-moving equipment, not with aviation...but we have water separators because a few drops of water can be enough to mess with the servo valves when you're near caviation limits. "...approximately one third of the fluid retrieved from the [landing gear] was water" is NOT RIGHT.

Also, I chuckled on reading "...the barrel tested with more than 1024 parts per million (ppm) particulates, which is more than double the allowable limit for particulates in hydraulic fluid... It is important to note that the test does not accurately measure contaminates above 1024ppm, so the contamination was potentially far greater than 1024ppm"

Gives strong "3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible" vibes!

[themaninthedark]

Of note to readers not familiar with hydraulic fluid, it is hygroscopic:

>Passenger safety requires that in commercial airplanes hydraulic actuators be powered by fire-resistant hydraulic fluids. As a downside, such fluids are hygroscopic which means that these tend to accumulate humidity from the environment

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9040/8/4/131

[hopelite]

Thanks for breaking that down. None of that surprises me and it's basically what I was expecting. This report gives a glimpse into the reality of the US military behind the propaganda facade and the massive margins for error stuffed with money.

[amy_petrik]

>it's obvious that ice can't be legally culpable

well, why not? we need a good politician to make it illegal for ice to form on an airplane, that would fix the whole thing. also, make it illegal to ever get sick. Checkmate, human illness.

[mvdtnz]

> Gives strong "3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible" vibes!

What?

[diggan]

> The article is somewhat sensationalistic

somewhat sensationalistic?! The article clearly tries to give the impression the pilot was on the call:

> A US Air Force F-35 pilot spent 50 minutes on an airborne conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to solve a problem with his fighter jet before he ejected

Knowing the quality of media these days, it wouldn't surprise me if it CNN just got it really wrong, but also wouldn't surprise me they'd do some brazen lie for clicks.

Edit: Reading the report, it seems like you, dear fellow HN commentator, got it wrong in this case, sorry to say :) Seems indeed the pilot itself was on the call:

> The mishap pilot (MP), assigned to the 354th FW, ejected safely before impact. [...] The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers. The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action

Page 35 from https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/documents/3_AIB%20Report....

[jonas21]

You omitted an important part of the sentence (in italics below):

> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF). The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action.

So it was the SOF on the conference call, relaying information to and from the pilot over the radio. This is more clear if you read the sequence of events on pages 7-10.

Not that it makes that much of a difference. Either way, he's up there waiting for the engineers on the ground to troubleshoot the problem.

[the__alchemist]

SOF initiates Conference Hotel procedures, FYI. It's a (rarely used) checklist in their book. SOF is the pilot sitting in the tower to liase with ATC and handle emergencies from an ops perspective.

[etler]

I think there's just some nuance to the scenario. The pilot wasn't directly on the call, but was participating in the call with the flight supervisor relaying the information.

I'd compare it to being in the room with someone on a conference phone call and they're relaying the conversation to you and them both ways. I would still say you were participating in the call even though you weren't directly on the call.

Also, he did initiate the call so "F-35 pilot held" is imprecise, but not totally wrong. Either way, the pilot was in an active tech support session with the plane engineers, making this one of the most intense tech support calls in history.

[charlieo88]

dang, I was looking forward to reading about the same F150 CarPlay and MS Teams being available in f35.

[RyanOD]

And, of course, CNN only links to their own articles. Why bother linking to the actual report? The rise in sites that only link to themselves 99% of the time really frustrates me.

[MostlyStable]

Journalism's failure to adopt linking to sources etc in the internet age is kind of infuriating. I get it, back in physical newspaper/magazine days, linking wasn't possible, and it takes a while for new norms to change and habits to form, but articles have been internet-first for well over a decade at this point. It should be completely unacceptable not to have linking to sources whenever relevant. I'm not sure I have ever found a news article that makes finding the original source or subject of the article easy. Certainly not on mainstream news outlets.

[tracker1]

We're CNN, you trust us right? I mean, why wouldn't you trust us in referring to ourselves? Because, we say so, so you have to believe us.

[andy_xor_andrew]

I read the article (twice) and I still have the impression the pilot was in fact the one in the conference call

Opening line:

> A US Air Force F-35 pilot spent 50 minutes on an airborne conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to solve a problem with his fighter jet before he ejected

Am I illiterate or misreading it?

> After going through system checklists in an attempt to remedy the problem, the pilot got on a conference call with engineers from the plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, *as the plane flew near the air base. *

Is this actually some insane weasel-wording by CNN? "We never said the pilot (he is in fact a pilot) was the one flying the jet, we just said 'as the plane flew', not 'as he flew the plane', using passive voice, so we're not wrong - but it was another pilot flying the plane"

[dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp]

From the report:

> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF)

"MP" is the pilot

> A conference hotel is a call that can be initiated by the SOF to speak directly with Lockheed Martin engineers to discuss an abnormality/malfunction not addressed in the PCL (Tab V-13.1, 14.1, 15.1, 16.1, 17.1). While waiting for the conference hotel to convene, the MP initiated a series of “sturns” with gravitational forces up to 2.5Gs, as well as a slip maneuver (i.e., left stick input with full right rudder pedal) to see if the nose wheel orientation would change (Tabs N-12, BB-201- 02). Upon visual inspection, the MW reported no change to the nose wheel (Tab N-13). The SOF informed the MP he was on the phone with the conference hotel and Lockheed Martin were getting the LG subject matter experts (SME)

So the pilot was, in effect, on the call, even if not directly on the phone. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing an F-35 pilot had radio comms with the SOF who was on a phone line. It's a layer of indirection, but the pilot was essentially exchanging info in real time with the conference call. Its not a stretch to colloquially say that the pilot was "in the conference call"

[nathan_douglas]

> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF). The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action.

I read this as "The pilot initiated a conference call, but was put on hold [i.e. not actually in the conference call in any meaningful way]." So he was both on and not on the conference call.

The Zen Koan of the Mishap Pilot. Sounds like an Iron Maiden song.

[the__alchemist]

Don't read the article; read the report.

[avs733]

To clarify because everyone is confused here. The report is a little vague and information is buried in a couple places. Using PDF page numbers

> "The MP responded “14.5” ... and then opined a “conference hotel” was appropriate for this situation (Tab N-12)." (pg. 13)

> "The MP, utilizing the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF) in the air traffic control (ATC) tower, initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin (LM)" (pg. 8)

> "The SOF informed the MP he was on the phone with the conference hotel and Lockheed Martin were getting the LG subject matter experts (SME) on the line ...no transcript is available because the call was made on a personal phone rather than the legal voice recorder in the air traffic control tower" (pg. 13)

in the last statement, he means that the SOF was informing the MP that the SOF was on the conference call and would relay information. The mishap pilot (MP) was speaking to the supervisor of flying (SOF), almost certainly via radio. He asked the SOF, in the control tower to set up a conference call. For reasons, maybe of expediency or technical failure, or norms or something, the SOF made that call on his personal cell phone. The MP was not 'on the phone' but the SOF would have primaily functioned as a relay between radio and phone. The purpose of the call was to get information from the pilot to the engineers and from the engineers to the pilot. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate* means he doesn't need to cognitive load of actually listening as the SOF and engineers think through what to do and decide on a plan. He needs to fly the plane and provide information necessary to help figure out how to aviate.

If you want to harp on CNN for accuracy, I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities but this feels pedantic. It is like saying 'the astronauts weren't talking to mission control, they were talking to the capcom. Only the capcom talked to mission control'.

I suspect that in the non-public version of this report there is more discussion of the decision and alternatives to doing that call on a personal cell phone for two reasons. (1) As noted in the report it means that conference isn't recorded and a transcript is not available to the investigators (thats shocking to me). (2) Detailed aircraft systems information, which is highly controlled, is being discussed on an open line.

* Funny enough, the third time the report defines SOF, they have a typo "supervisor of lying" (pg. 36)

[jasonlotito]

> If you want to harp on CNN for accuracy, I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities but this feels pedantic. It is like saying 'the astronauts weren't talking to mission control, they were talking to the capcom. Only the capcom talked to mission control'.

Um, actually, they were talking to a mic. And the mic converted the noise... /s

But yeah, excellent comment here.

[weaksauce]

> Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward — reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

> In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

basically that and the knoll's law on media accuracy:

> Knoll’s law of media accuracy is the adage that “everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge”.

[banku_brougham]

Knoll's law, I'll remember this.

[pbasista]

> The pilot was not part of the conference call!

Thank you. If I cannot even trust one of the substantial parts of the headline to be true, then my interest to read or even care about such an article is reduced to almost zero.

[Gathering6678]

"After going through system checklists in an attempt to remedy the problem, the pilot got on a conference call with engineers from the plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, as the plane flew near the air base."

Did I misread that? I thought it meant an air-to-ground call, which I suppose is not that unheard of: I've definitely seen air accident videos saying the pilots were trying to debug in the air with engineers in the loop.

*edit: never mind, I misunderstood your comment. I thought you meant the article was clickbait.

[ozim]

Still interesting part is: them trying to fix the problem - made the plane crash.

Of course it couldn’t land but still, tweaking stuff while flying was ultimately causing loss of control.

[LeifCarrotson]

The report actually says it could have landed. A week later, another F35 at the same base had the same problem, it landed with its nose gear 6 degrees off center and the pilot barely noticed.

Basically, Lockheed Martin engineers told the air force to attempt re-centering with touch-and-go landings, but didn't realize that this could mess with the weight-on-wheels sensors and cause it to switch flight modes.

[jasonlotito]

"The pilot was not part of the conference call!"

So, from the actual report:

> The MP initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers through the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF). The MA held for approximately 50 minutes while the team developed a plan of action.

Seems like he was at some level a part of the conference call. Even if they are on hold, it still sounds like they were a part of it at some level. Seems reasonable to me.

[etler]

The call was being relayed to the pilot by the flight supervisor. While he wasn't "on" the call, I think it's fair to say he was "part" of the call. He's still getting live tech support and trying to trouble shoot the plane while flying it. He had an intermediary but I don't think that totally changes the scenario.

[CamperBob2]

The last paragraph of the article and seems to be missing a few words

Something, something, mote in your neighbor's eye, mumble, something...

[grues-dinner]

Muphry's Law strikes again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law

[WalterBright]

Sounds like the sensationalistic and woefully inaccurate media reporting of the MAX crashes.