US Navy charges sailors over leak of South China Sea F-35 jet crash video
- F-35 crash-landing happened on USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea last month
- US Navy charged five sailors under ‘Article 92’ over leak of video of the incident
An ensign, three chief petty officers and a senior chief petty officer were charged under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the US Navy said in a statement to KGTV-TV in San Diego. Their names were not released.
Article 92 involves disobeying a lawful order or regulation or being derelict in performance of duty.
The US Navy also said the case involved the unauthorised release of shipboard video that appeared online this month and showed the F-35C Lightning II hitting the deck of the San Diego-based USS Carl Vinson wing-first, and then skating off the deck into the water on January 24.
The pilot ejected and was injured along with six sailors. The cause of the crash has been under investigation.
The wreckage of the multimillion-dollar aircraft has not been recovered yet.
The aircraft carrier had superficial damage and was able to resume operations, the US Navy has said. The Carl Vinson and its strike group returned to San Diego on February 14 after an eight-month deployment.
Collin Koh, a research fellow from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said the action taken against the five sailors was “quite a standard course of action that’s undertaken by militaries worldwide if the infraction contravenes regulations or laws on official secrets”.
“The leak of the mishap itself would have amounted to that violation, and typically court martial would be the typical recourse,” he added.
Additional reporting by Minnie Chan
