A 2022 ramp strike aboard the carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) that injured six sailors and resulted in the loss of an F-35C Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter was due to a mistake by the fighter pilot during landing, an investigation into the Jan. 24, 2022 incident determined. The junior officer had performed a specialized […]
their initial call, they were told they were responding to a hard landing. so that description, what they were told they were responding to in addition to the reports on the tower tapes, does that tell you that there was any indication that there was a problem, prior to landing? if you are sitting in the pointy nose of the airplane. you would characterize that as a hard landing. at the very least. it was a lot more than that. in naval aviation we call that a ramp strike. it was more than a hard landing, but at the time, being in the airplane, when that tail smacked down and ripped off, that took the front end of the airplane and slammed it on the runway and when it did that, it probably shoved the landing gear up in