Britain’s Three Week Failure to Fix Stranded F-35 in India Provides an Opportunity For Russia’s Su-57 Stealth Fighter
South Asia , Aircraft and Anti-Aircraft
A British Armed Forces F-35B fifth generation fighter which was forced to land at Thiruvananthapuram Airport in southern India on June 14 has remained grounded their for 20 days, with efforts to make the aircraft flyable having failed. The fighter was diverted to the airport after encountering bad weather during a sortie in the Indian Ocean from the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, which has itself had a highly troubled service record since being commissioned in 2019. Its operations in the Indian Ocean were widely speculated to have been coordinated with broader Western and Israeli operations at the time, with the presence of large Western forces within reach of Iranian territory having helped to deter the country from responding to U.S. and Israeli attacks with further escalation. It was confirmed on July 3 that the British Armed Forces had conceded that repairing the aircraft was not viable, with options for partly dismantling it and flying it to the United Kingdom on a C-17 Globemaster transport being explored at the time.
Upon landing in India, the F-35’s pilot initially refused to leave his aircraft, which was standard protocol for unexpected landings in non-aligned states due to the highly sensitive technologies of the fighter. It has been speculated that the United Kingdom moved quickly to gain assurances from India that the fighter would not be inspected or studied. The fighter was in late June confirmed to be moved to an Air India maintenance hangar by specialist teams flown in from the United Kingdom. The incident has drawn attention to the significant deficiencies in reliability which have plagued the F-35 program for close to two decades, as well as the difficulties of maintaining the aircraft which have resulted in by far the lowest availably rates in the U.S. Air Force other than those of the heavier and more problematic F-22. The F-35B’s maintenance requirements are particularly complex due to its short takeoff and vertical landing capabilities, while its range is very considerably shorter than those of the F-35A and F-35C variants, which limits the range of bases which it can potentially land at during emergencies.
The protracted grounding of an F-35B in India has drawn significant ridicule from netizens and media outlets in the South Asian state, and occurred shortly after the United States intensified efforts to market the fighter to the country in February. The fighter was already considered unlikely to be procured by the Indian Defence Ministry, primarily due to the extensive controls the United States imposes on how its fighters are utilised, which are particularly strict for sensitive fifth generation aircraft. As observed in February by former Air Marshal Anil Chopra, Delhi “remains cautious about the U.S. tendency to exert pressure and abandon allies when its own interests diverge with theirs, as well as potential U.S. expectations for India to distance itself from Russia.” He stressed that “choosing a reliable partner country that won’t impose undue pressure is crucial,” which he strongly implied ruled the F-35, and thus left the competing Russian Su-57 as the only option to procure a fifth generation fighter within the next decade.
Although its avionics and stealth capabilities are less sophisticated than those of the F-35, the Su-57 has a number of advantages including a far superior flight performance, double the range, a much higher missile payload, and carriage of a more powerful sensor suite. Russia in May made an unprecedented offer to provide the Indian Defence Ministry with full access to the Su-57’s source code as part of a large license production deal that was under consideration at the time. The deal will also include technology transfers to benefit India’s AMCA fifth generation fighter program. Indian interest in Su-57 procurements is though to have been raised after its French Rafale ‘4+ generation’ fighters were perceived to have had an underwhelming performance during border clashes with Pakistan in early May. Delhi nevertheless faces sustained pressure form the United States to distance itself from Russia and reduce defence procurements from its longstanding security partner, although it has resisted such efforts in the past despite consistent threats of American economic sanctions.
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