Rumors are flying around South Carolina that the recent F35 crash there occurred because the plane ejected the pilot on its own.
As Art would say, stay tuned.
Here's a PM I sent Bateman a day or two after the mishap:
I was waiting to see what, if any, additional information was released after they found the a/c. One thing unique about the STO/VL "B" model is it has an auto-eject system to get the pilot out if he loses control in a hover, such as losing his lift motor in hover. Since the a/c flew on until it ran out of gas, sounds like this might have been an inadvertent ejection, maybe an auto-eject malfunction. The USMC and RN pilots fought hard to not have that system installed, but lost the battle. The Russians had an auto-eject system on their Yak-38 STO/VL fighters, and they certainly had inadvertent auto-ejections.
