A British F-35B Lightning stealth fighter jet was forced to make an emergency landing at Kagoshima International Airport in Japan on Sunday after developing a technical fault. The £88 million aircraft, part of the UK Carrier Strike Group operating from HMS Prince of Wales, landed at around 11:30 local time, causing runway operations to be suspended for nearly 20 minutes.
The Japanese defence ministry confirmed the plane had suffered an engineering issue and was undergoing inspections to enable it to rejoin the carrier group as soon as possible. Footage showed the aircraft parked near the runway with no visible damage. The UK Carrier Strike Group, including HMS Prince of Wales and multiple escort ships, is conducting joint exercises with Japanese and American forces under Operation Highmast, which began on 4 August and is scheduled to run until 12 August.
This is the second such incident involving a British F-35B in less than two months. In June, another F-35B from the same strike group was stranded in India for over five weeks after an emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram airport due to bad weather and low fuel, later reporting a hydraulic system fault. British engineers carried out extensive repairs before the jet departed on 22 July.
The F-35B is a short take-off and vertical landing variant designed for aircraft carriers. Britain operates 37 of these jets, with a total of 47 expected by the end of 2025. In June, the UK government announced plans to purchase at least 12 F-35A conventional variants. However, the F-35 has faced reliability concerns, with a declassified Pentagon report finding that overall reliability and availability of the US fleet remained below expectations. In November 2021, a UK F-35B crashed into the Mediterranean shortly after take-off from HMS Queen Elizabeth.
