Repairs finally begin on British fighter jet stuck in India
Britain's High Commission in India said engineers had reached Thiruvananthapuram International Airport in Kerala, and that the stranded Lightning jet had been moved to a hangar.
'UPDATE: A team of UK engineers has arrived in India to commence repairs on the UK F35B aircraft. Repairs are underway on the aircraft, which has now been moved to the maintenance hangar. We are grateful for the continued support and collaboration of the Indian authorities,' the British High Commission in India said in a statement.
The F-35B Lightning jet encountered bad weather on 14 June while flying about 100 nautical miles off the coast of Kerala in southern India and was unable to return to its aircraft carrier. The pilots of the aircraft instead asked for permission for an emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram.
The jet's extended stay in India has become a source of growing speculation about whether it constitutes a security risk, with the jet packed full of state-of-the-art stealth technology to which India does not currently have access.
It also sparked a widely-shared meme from the Kerala tourist board. 'UK F-35B: Kerala is such an amazing place, I don't want to leave. Definitely recommend,' the ad read, showing the fighter jet reviewing the state with five stars.
As it awaited repairs, six crew members from the F-35B stayed at the airport working in shifts to keep a close eye on the fighter jet around the clock, according to the airport authorities.
British officials told The Independent they have no concerns about espionage and are grateful to their Indian allies for keeping the jet safe while it awaits essential repairs.
On Monday, the F-35B was pictured inside a hangar facility at the international airport. Photos showed it was towed inside the hangar by a tug vehicle.
Another photo showed a Royal Air Force Atlas C1 military transport aircraft also at the Indian airport, which was used to bring over the team of British engineers.
On Sunday, British officials said the UK engineers were 'carrying specialist equipment necessary for the movement and repair process'.
The F-35B Lightning, built by the American aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, is one of the most advanced fighters in the armouries of Nato states and a few select allies.
It is packed with state-of-the-art technology, including sensors, mission systems and stealth features that allow it to operate in hostile environments without being detected.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Record
15 hours ago
- Daily Record
Artefacts from WWI ship that sank in Orkney claiming hundreds of lives reclaimed after a century
A bell, a gun badge, and a tampion were recovered from the wreckage of HMS Vanguard and will be loaned to the Scapa Flow Museum More than 100 years after one of the Royal Navy's worst disasters, divers have recovered artefacts from a sunken ship. HMS Vanguard lies on the seabed of Scapa Flow in Orkney, a solemn relic from the tragedy that claimed the lives of 845 lives in 1917. The ship's bell, along with a metal badge from one of the ship's main guns and a tampion, a protective gun barrel plug, have been carefully brought to the surface after three years of planning. All three items were located just outside the wreck's exclusion zone and will be loaned to the Scapa Flow Museum once conservation work is complete. The discovery marks a significant step in preserving the memory of the men who perished in what is believed to be the greatest accidental loss of life in a single incident in Royal Navy history. HMS Vanguard, a St Vincent-class dreadnought and veteran of the Battle of Jutland, was anchored alongside the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow on July 9, 1917, when a catastrophic explosion in a magazine tore through the ship. She sank in moments. Only three of the 848 men onboard survived, one of whom later died from his injuries. The cause of the explosion remains uncertain, though it's widely believed to have been an accidental detonation of cordite stored near the magazines. The wreck now lies at a depth of 34 metres (110 feet) and is protected under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 as a Sovereign Immune Wreck. Special permission was granted to recover the artefacts, which were discovered during a 2017 survey led by diver Emily Turton as part of centenary commemorations. Turton's team spent more than 500 hours meticulously mapping the wreck site, which is spread across a large area on the seafloor. Naval historian Nick Hewitt, now culture team leader at Orkney Islands Council, believes the recovered bell in particular will resonate deeply with the public. 'A hundred years-plus ago your relatives looked at it, heard it ringing,' said Wendy Sadler, whose great-grand uncle Henry Metcalf was among those who died in the sinking. 'To think of what happened to them that night, losing their lives, and it is not seen for another 110 years, it is a privilege and an honour,' she told the BBC. 'We can't stop doing things like this, them fading into history, we've got to keep their memory alive somehow.' Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Sadler is currently leading a project to collect photographs of as many of HMS Vanguard's crew members as possible. Experts believe the tampion, possibly made from horsehair and leather, may have been preserved thanks to the silty conditions of the seabed. The ship's bell, now bent and warped by the explosion that sank her, was found some 200 metres from the original location of the vessel. The recovery effort has been a collaborative project involving the Ministry of Defence, the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN), Orkney Islands Council and the Scottish government. After conservation, the artefacts will take pride of place at the Scapa Flow Museum, honouring the memory of those lost in one of the darkest chapters of British naval history.
Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Grade school sum looks easy but leaves people confused - can you solve it?
A grade school arithmetic problem has left people scratching their heads. The problem posted by @BholanathDutta on X read: 4+4x4+4 Before you jump into the deep end too quickly and try to find the solution, first remind yourself of simple math principles so you don't make a basic mistake. This sum is a simple lesson in mathematicians' favorite acronym: PEMDAS. PEMDAS is frequently taught as a way for mathletes to remember the correct order in which to solve compound math equations. It stands for Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction. There are no parentheses or exponents in this problem so multiplication comes first. It may feel unnatural to solve from the center, but give it a go and see if you can find the sum in 30 seconds or less. 4 x 4 = 16 With one step down, the problem reads: 4+16+4 From there, it's just simple addition: 4+16= 20 Now we have: 20+4 = 24 Were you able to solve it? There are a couple of easy errors that other wannabe mathematicians fell victim to while trying to get to the bottom of things. The first is solving the equation left to right, instead of implementing PEMDAS. 4+4=8 8 x 4 = 32 32 + 4 = 36 Another easy mistake to make is putting the addition first. By adding 4+4 on both sides of the equation first the simplified problem would become: 8 x 8 = 64 Unfortunately, this mixes up the reliable acronym PEMDAS and leaves the solution unsolved. How did you do? Were you able to rely on math principles learned decades ago or did you too fall victim to one of these easy errors?
The Guardian
17 hours ago
- The Guardian
Can you solve it? The world's most fascinating number – revealed!
Before we get to today's puzzles, I'd like to introduce the most interesting number in the universe. 108 Readers of Asian heritage will nod with familiarity. The number has profound significance in Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Chinese culture. It's the number of beads on a rosary, the number of sun salutations performed in a yoga ceremony, the number of Buddhas to be carved on a walnut for good luck, and the phone number of the Indian Emergency Ambulance service. Mathematically, 108 is also a superstar, a fact I only discovered recently in a new book by the former Principal Chief Engineer of Indian Railways, Shyam Sunder Gupta. For example: 108 is 11 x 22 x 33 , the product of the first three numbers raised to themselves. 108 is the smallest number whose divisors when taken together contain every digit at least once. (The divisors are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, 27, 36, 54 and 108) 108 is the largest known number n such that 2n does not contain a 9. (2108 = 324518553658426726783156020576256) 108 is the internal angle (in degrees) of a regular pentagon 108 is the number of free heptominoes (the Tetris-like shapes made from seven linked squares.) 108 is the number of cards in a UNO deck. I've only scratched the surface. Gupta's book, Exploring the Beauty of Fascinating Numbers, has ten pages of facts about 108, ending with the observation that '1' stands for truth, '0' for emptiness and '8' is the infinity symbol rotated by 90 degrees. 'Thus the sacred number 108 tells us that we are at once something, nothing and everything.' The only other numbers that Gupta devotes an entire chapter to are pi, 13, 666 and 153 (possibly the second most interesting number in the universe). It could be the case that the spiritual importance of 108 led Asian mathematicians to catalogue interesting properties about it. Or it could be that 108 really is a particularly interesting number – it is not too small, not too large, and highly divisible – which helped it gain spiritual importance in the first place. How nice that numerologists and number theorists have something to agree about for once! Today's puzzles are about numbers with interesting properties. 1. Brilliant billions You have ten cards. On each of the cards is one of the digits 0 to 9. When you arrange the cards in a line you get a number between 0123456789 and 9876543210. i) How many of these numbers are divisible by 2? ii) How many are divisible by 3? 2. How low can you go? What is the smallest even number between 1000 and 9999 written with four different digits? 3. All about me An autobiographical number is one where the first digit describes how many 0s it has, the second digit describes how many 1s it has, and so on, so that the (n + 1)th digit describes how many n's it has. For example, 1210 is an autobiographical number because it has 1 zero, 2 ones, 1 two and 0 threes. Find the only ten digit autobiographical number. I'll be back at 5pm UK with the solutions. PLEASE NO SPOILERS – instead tell me why you find 108 such a great number! Exploring the Beauty of Fascinating Numbers by Shyam Sunder Gupta is out now. I've been setting a puzzle here on alternate Mondays since 2015. I'm always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me. Sources of today's puzzles: 1) Leon Gelkoff, 2) SmartFriends, a daily IQ challenge, 3) An old classic.
