Air Force grounds F-35 fleet over faulty component

The Air Force said Friday that it is grounding its fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets over a faulty component.

The stand-down, which was first reported by Breaking Defense, was due to an issue with the cartridge actuated device (CAD) — a component inside ejection seats used to help propel the seats out of an aircraft.  

Capt. Jonathan Carkhuff, a spokesperson for Air Force Combatant Command, told The Hill in a statement that the command began a “Time Compliance Technical Directive to inspect all of the cartridges on the ejection seat within 90 days.”

“Out of an abundance of caution, ACC units will execute a stand-down on July 29 to expedite the inspection process. Based on data gathered from those inspections, ACC will make a determination to resume operations,” Carkhuff added.

News of the stand-down comes after the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command similarly grounded 300 training aircraft due to the issue with the seat parts. That stand-down was first reported by the Air Force Times on Thursday.

Earlier this week, the Navy and Marine Corps disclosed that they were working to resolve similar issues affecting the devices in some of its fixed-wing aircraft.

In a statement, the services said they used validated radiography procedures to scan its inventory to ensure each CAD was manufactured properly before having them replaced. Only aircraft “within a limited range of lot numbers” are affected by the issue.