Officials from the United Kingdom, the United States and NATO assured Monday they would be able to recover before Russia the wreckage of an F-35B stealth plane, which crashed at sea last Wednesday.
The plane had taken off from the British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth before falling into the sea. Its pilot was able to eject in time.
But the Atlantic Alliance was worried about the possible recovery of the device by Russia and the risk of it getting its hands on its technology.
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"We will recover it first, I guarantee it,"
assured General Simon Doran, the highest ranking American officer aboard the aircraft carrier.
"We are not worried about its recovery,"
assured for his part the Supreme Deputy Commander of the Allied Forces for Europe, General Tim Radford, in front of journalists aboard the ship which cruises in the Mediterranean.
“We are not worried because we are working on this at the moment.
There was a concern when the plane fell, but the pilot is safe and that is what is most important ”
, he added.
He was unwilling to reveal details of the rescue operation.
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The loss of this F-35 is a
"truly regrettable incident (...) a setback,"
said the officer at the head of one of the nine ships engaged in the Mediterranean, Commander Steve Moorhouse.
But, he added,
“the reliability of this device and our confidence in it and in the project are intact”
.
The United Kingdom has already received 21 American F-35Bs, most of them destined for its two aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.
The F-35Bs are a variant of the fifth generation F-35, capable of vertical landing and short takeoff.