Royal Navy mocked by Indian tourist board over £88million F-35B Lightning jet stranded in the country for over a fortnight
The £88m warplane, dubbed one of the world's most hi-tech, was forced to make an emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram airport, in Kerala, on June 14.
The fighter jet had been on a mission with the Royal Navy's new £3.5billion aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales when it encountered bad weather over the Indian Ocean.
Since landing at the airport, which sees almost five million passengers passing through it every year, the stealth aircraft has been stuck due to an engineering issue.
And on Wednesday, Kerala's tourist board appeared to poke fun at the clapped-out fighter jet by posting a tongue-in-cheek cartoon image of the F-35 on a runway surrounded by palm trees.
The picture, thought to have been created with generative AI, even featured a fake review of the southern Indian state, written by 'UK F-35B' that read: 'Kerala is such an amazing place, I don't want to leave. Definitely recommend.'
Kerala Tourism - which has 1.9million followers on X, formerly Twitter - captioned the image: 'Kerala, the destination you'll never want to leave.'
The post has since been seen by more than a million people, with many joining in to mock the stricken warplane.
'The British always have difficulty leaving India once they land here. They always need some strong persuasion to leave India,' one said, in a nod to the UK's colonial past as imperial rulers of India for almost 200 years.
'That awkward moment when the UK F35 force finds itself the subject of a tourism poster...,' one poster added, with another tweeting: 'Top banter! Well played.'
A defence source said the post was 'quite funny' but added technical issues could arise unexpectedly. 'These things are not uncommon,' they said.
The hi-tech fighter jet was taking part in drills with the Indian Navy when it was forced to carry out an emergency landing.
The Indian Air Force said it was providing support to the Royal Navy plane 'for the rectification and subsequent return of the aircraft'.
A Royal Navy source previously told MailOnline the plane was unable to return to the £3.5billion aircraft carrier due to adverse weather conditions.
However, while the jet was at the Indian airport, it developed an 'engineering issue' which has left it unable to return to HMS Prince of Wales.
'Prioritising safety, the aircraft diverted to Thiruvananthapuram International Airport in India, where it landed safely and without incident,' they said.
The source said it was standard practice for aircraft to carry sufficient fuel reserves to accommodate such diversions when necessary.
MailOnline understands engineers from the aircraft carrier have assessed the stealth jet and decided a specialist team of technicians from the UK is needed to fix it.
Currently, the Ministry of Defence does not have a forecast for when the aircraft will be repaired. It potentially means it will no longer be available for the remainder of the Prince of Wales's global deployment, which is expected to continue until December.
To minimise any disruption to the regular airport operations, the F-35 will be moved to a space at the site's maintenance, repair and overhaul facility once specialist equipment and engineers from the UK arrive.
The multi-million pound stealth aircraft is currently parked in an isolated bay under armed guard.
However, questions have been raised over how secure the prized piece of military kit is after images emerged of just one Indian soldier armed with an assault rifle guarding it.
The jets are packed with an array of highly sensitive and secret technology, which the the likes of Russia and Iran would be eager to get their hands on.
Reports previously suggested the the Royal Navy had rejected Air India's offer to place the aircraft in one of its hangars over concerns other people could access and steal the classified technology in the jet.
However, a defence insider insisted this was not the case, saying moving the F-35 into the hangar to essentially 'stay in storage' while waiting for UK engineers to arrive would have taken up vital space used by local crews to fix jets.
An MoD spokeswoman told MailOnline on Wednesday: 'We are working to repair the UK F-35B at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport as quickly as possible.
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