An Israeli F-35 stealth aircraft revealed to the world both its own location and that of Israel's primary nuclear facility on Monday when it turned on a publicly viewable transponder signal.
Deep in the Negev desert of southern israel lies the Shimon Peres Nuclear Research Center, also called the Dimona reactor, the center of Israel's nuclear research and weapons programs. While its location isn't exactly top secret, it's impossible for civilians to get close to it; the israel Defense Forces have even been known to shoot down their own planes when they don't have permission to fly over Dimona.
However, while one Israeli Air Force F-35I “Adir” stealth fighter flying over Dimona on Monday wasn't at risk of being shot down, it did drop its ghostly act for about 20 minutes when it turned on a publicly viewable transponder signal, causing it to appear on civilian radars.
According to Israel's Ynet News, the Adir was using a “squawk” signal used to communicate certain vital messages on a Mode-S/ADS-B civilian frequency. On Monday, this F-35 was broadcasting Squawk 7600, meaning “transmission error”; other commonly used Squawk codes are 7700, meaning “emergency,” and 7500, meaning “hijacking.”
The Adir, using callsign F35LTNG2 and transponder hex code 738AD2, appeared for about 25 minutes on local radars as well as tracking sites like FlightRadar24 and ADS-B Exchange.
A spokesperson for the IDF told the Jerusalem Post the incident happened…
