Two €100 million stealth jets grounded at Lajes – Portugal Resident

Just days since Portuguese journalists were flown to Texas to hear why the Air Force should be renewing its aging fleet of F-16 fighter jets, with F-35s from the United States, the British press reveals that two €100 million jets have been “grounded on an island in the Atlantic for two months” with mechanical problems.

That island is Terceira, in the Azores: and the jets are sitting on the tarmac at Lajes International Airport, writes the Telegraph.

“They made emergency landings at Lajes International Airport (…) and have not flown since.

“It is unclear what the faults are”, the article continues, but this is not the first time F-35s (these two are destined for delivery to the RAF, in the United Kingdom) have suffered from “mechanical glitches”.

“The planes’ grounding comes less than a year after another RAF F-35B was stranded at an airport in India for a month after suffering a mechanical glitch and making an emergency landing,” says the paper – adding “the RAF should have a fleet of 48 active F-35Bs. However, one crashed into the Mediterranean in 2021 after failing to take off from the ramp on the HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier.”

The article refers to a “scathing review by the National Audit Office (NAO)” which “in 2025, found that the UK’s fleet of F-35s was only able to perform about a third of all its required missions, because of a lack of engineers and spare parts, and unexpectedly high corrosion rates at sea.

“The NAO also reported that from October 2024 to January 2025, no aircraft were available “to perform any mission” because they were undergoing maintenance.”

None of this augurs well for Portugal – which only last year admitted that it was reconsidering a purchase of F-35s, in favour of European manufactured jets, due to the fact that America retains ‘critical controls’ of these jets, even after they have been sold – meaning that the U.S. can essentially stop countries from using their F-35s if it (the States) does not agree with that country’s reasons for doing so.

The Lusa article of earlier this week did not refer to these ‘doubts’ in the air, instead extolling the apparent virtues of the latest F-35s, and the fact that they are currently getting “real world experience” – some of them, at least.

source: Telegraph