U.S. Military, And Operators Worlwide Ground Their F-35s To Look For Faulty Fuel Tubes

The U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy have all stopped flying their F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, as have international operators, in order to inspect and potentially replace faulty fuel tubes common to all three variants of the aircraft, a process that should thankfully only last one or two days. Investigators looking into the cause or causes of a Marine F-35B crash in September 2018 uncovered the issue, which comes amid a Pentagon-mandated effort to boost the Joint Strike Fighter's availability rates and raises serious questions about increased reliance on a single family of combat jets.
The Pentagon's central F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) announced the grounding on Oct. 11, 2018. The inciting incident occurred on Sept. 28, 2018, when an F-35B from Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron Five Zero One (VMFAT-501) crashed at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina. The pilot of that aircraft was able to safely eject, but the stealth fighter was a total loss.
thedrive

Australia grounds Joint Strike Fighter fleet after US Marine Corps F-35 in catastrophic engine failure and crash

The crash and destruction of one of America's most sophisticated and expensive combat warplanes — an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — has led to the immediate grounding of Australia's entire fleet of the aircraft.
The Royal Australian Airforce has taken delivery of nine F-35s from US manufacturer Lockheed Martin, and all are now sitting idle at their American training base in Arizona.
Australia is the latest among global partners in the Joint Strike Fighter program to order groundings of their planes as a precaution.
n a statement, the Australian Defence Force confirmed that "the F-35 fleet has been instructed to conduct safety inspections across all delivered engines".
abc.net