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Comment by wesselbindt | Hacker News Reader

The article says this is the first jet that was shot down by enemy fire this war, but this confuses me. Was the F35 that was downed a while back friendly fire or something? Are F35s not fighter jets?

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The F35 was able to make an emergency landing in a gulf country. This one actually went down in Iran.

I’m not sure a plane can be landed when the crew ejected.

Assuming you're both referring to the events of 19 March, they did not eject from the F-35. I know of no event during this war where an F-35 crew ejected.

It can, that's part of why these newer planes cost billions of dollars per unit. Assuming the plane is still controllable though. Usually in that case you wouldn't eject, but its technically possible. There was a case where a US pilot ejected on accident and their plane landed itself.

> emergency landing

https://preview.redd.it/f35-i-shot-down-in-iran-v0-0gdyroc4o....

I think it's ok to say that it crashed into the ground but the pilot survived.

With 'emergency landing' people assume it was just a rough landing whereas the plane here is completely and utterly broken.

As an aviator, that right there counts as an emergency landing. A hard one.

They limped it back home, they didn’t ditch a very sensitive airframe over enemy territory, I’d call that a win and the pilot deserves a medal for that.

Source of that image though.. ?

An AI prompt in June 2025.

I don't know if you noticed but that's not a US F-35 (whole image is probably fake tbh) and the reddit post is from 2025.

Nop I didn't, assumed it was right since the reddit post where it was shown had many upvotes.

Thanks for pointing it out.

You should at least share an image of f35...

That one was damaged and managed to land safely, iirc. Depends on your definition of "shot down" I guess, but the pilot didn't eject, so...

We have always been at war with Eastasia

I thought the IR video of that showed it made the missile detonate before the missile hit, maybe shrapnel hit the jet

Then again idk the jet exhaust becomes more significant not sure if afterburner or damage

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1ry6ma2/f35_...

That's how anti-aircraft missiles always work.

In that video it seems like something shoots at the missile is what I'm saying from the F35

Someone said maybe a form of DIRCM

You're talking about a single "dash" on the frame before it goes all white. First question, if it were a laser, would be what exactly are you seeing there? A laser from the side is invisible, there'd need to be dust there, or the air would need to have turned into plasma. I don't think either makes that much sense. Second question/problem would be… it would have failed/be malfunctioning because —

— pretty much all AA munition works by exploding in close proximity to the target and showering it in shrapnel. So this might even have "helped" the missle/shell against malfunction in its fuse. And considering that this is designed to work like that, and it's likely not the greatest quality work on the Iranian side, it's also possible that the thing is already exploding and just ejected some piece of intentional shrapnel (or unintentionally itself) early, ahead of the actual detonation.

Or the Iranians edited that "dash" into that one frame, it's not exactly like it's a reputable source and it's in their interest to confuse things. Maybe they want the US to believe that the countermeasures are malfunctioning and helping their attacks, so they turn it off…

Yeah I was also thinking the the dash might be the missile itself

The single exhaust plume does become multiple on the F35 suggesting damage

The missiles have what’s effectively a flak shotgun shell at the tip, when they’re pointed at an object and close by it shoots flak in a tight cone towards the front.

Flak spreads the damage better and does more kinetic damage than trying to ram a plane with a missile and hoping the concussion from a the resulting explosion damages something.

Almost like a seeking flak shell. I had no idea.

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