There’s a whole lot to say about the missing F-35, none of it good (but some of it funny) By Andrea Widburg

It’s not a news story anyone in America ever expected to read, although maybe two-and-a-half years into the Biden administration, we should have learned to expect the unexpected: An unpiloted F-35 combat aircraft is flying somewhere over America on a trajectory known only to itself. The memes are wonderful, but the facts should disturb all of us.

The story sounds like a Cold War farce but, as the local Charleston paper reports, it’s very real:

At least we know that the jet, which was designed to be a stealth fighter, lives up to that reputation.

Image: An F-35A fighter. Public domain.

But, honestly, how in the world can we have a functional military that loses $80-100 million jets? It’s one thing if we design them so that the enemy can’t spot them but did anyone in the chain of command think that we might want to find them?

The contention is that the plane’s transponder was turned off. How in the world did that happen? Was it incompetence? Or are we looking at something worse, such as sabotage or even an enemy action? Perhaps the plane is winging its way to China or Russia even as we speak. And speaking of China, maybe the Chinese weather balloon can find the jet for us.

As of this writing, the search for the missing jet is continuing:

Based on the facts available, I’m also troubled by the pilot ejecting from the plane over a heavily populated area. Of course, the plane may have ceased responding to anything he did, in which case, there was nothing he could do but save his own life.