Nearly a month after an F-35B Lightning II jet crashed in eastern South Carolina, the military has finished recovering the aircraft and cleaning up the area, according to officials.
On Sept. 17, a pilot ejected from the jet after what he described as an “aircraft failure” in a 911 call to emergency authorities. The pilot descended roughly 2,000 feet after ejecting from the nearly $100 million aircraft, landing in a local resident's backyard, according to the call.
The ejection was followed by a daylong search for the aircraft, prompting Joint Base Charleston to ask the public for help locating the jet. The crash also prompted a two-day aviation safety stand-down from the top Marine Corps officer, Gen. Eric Smith.
Read Next: USS Lake Erie Commander Fired Due to Performance Issues, Navy Says
Now, after weeks of cleanup in the warm early fall South Carolina weather, officials said that “recovery and environmental remediation operations” have been successfully concluded.
“It is purposeful, sometimes tedious work,” Sarah Murtagh, a Navy on-scene coordinator, said in a press release from the Navy Region Southeast on Wednesday. “I hope that the thorough job of removing contaminants we have done here underscores the Navy and Marine Corps commitment to ensuring the safety and environmental integrity of this beautiful area.”
The wreckage was discovered in Indiantown, South Carolina, where officials said they discovered a “debris…
