After eighteen years of problematic and controversial development, the Lockheed F-35 Lightning stealth fighter may soon go into mass production, many of its bugs being fixed after the initial delivery of four hundred units. However, a June 2019 scoop from Defense News reporters Valerie Insinna, David Larter and Aaron Mehta revealed that thirteen serious category 1 defects remain. As reported by Insinna and Larter, on two occasions in late 2011 an F-35B and F- The 35C in flight near 50.000 feet was damaged using afterburners to reach speeds of Mach 1.3 and 1.4.
Incredibly, these incidents that occurred eight years ago had never been reported before, despite numerous critical reports from the US government against Lockheed Martin.