How ghost jets flew without pilots & LANDED in one piece…from ‘Cornfield Bomber’ to Soviet MiG that came down in Belgium
A US Air Force F-35 fighter jet vanished after a “mishap” caused its pilot to eject but the warplane continued to fly in a “zombie state”.
As the mystery deepens on the missing £65million aircraft, recent history reveals it wouldn’t be the first jet to fly pilotless across long distances and possibly land itself.
The “ghost” F-35 went missing over South Carolina on Sunday afternoon and the US military is desperately scrambling to locate the stealth aircraft.
The pilot safely ejected following the unknown “mishap” but the plane – reportedly left in a “zombie” state on autopilot – continued to fly on.
The strange incident mirrors the infamous cases of both the US “Cornfield Bomber” in 1970 and the Soviet “Ghost MiG” that crashed in Belgium in 1989.
Both fighter jets experienced faults that caused their pilot to eject, but bizarrely both stricken aircraft managed to regain altitude and fly on for miles unmanned.
During the “Cornfield Bomber” case in 1970, a US F-106 miraculously recovered from a violent spinning nosedive and later landed itself safely with very little damage.
And in 1989, a Soviet MiG-23 caused pandemonium when it flew pilotless over 1000km crossing the Iron Curtain and into Nato airspace before crashing into a home in Belgium.
However, the state of the currently missing F-35B is unknown and the search area has been narrowed to north of North Charleston in either Lake Moultrie or Lake Marion.
Officials have called on the public to help find the missing Lightning II fighter jet, which was reportedly left in stealth mode on autopilot prior the ejection.
In this kind of “zombie” state, F-35s can fly for prolonged periods depending on their fuel state.
Emergency efforts to locate the jet have been further hampered by the sensors, systems and airframe used on F-35Bs that enable it to be undetected by enemies.
Meanwhile, the warplane’s transponder – which is usually used to locate the aircraft – is not working “for some reason that we haven’t determined”, a spokesperson at Joint Base Charleston told The Washington Post.
F-35s are some of the world’s most expensive and advanced fighter jets – known for their stealth, speed and aerodynamic body.
The US military is currently investigating what led to the “mishap”.
The ‘Cornfield Bomber’
On February 2, 1970, Lieutenant Gary Foust and his wingman took off for a training exercise near Boston in a F-106 Delta Dart.
As he competed with his opponent in the training game, they came far too close to crashing and as Foust attempted to avoid the collision, the plane entered a high-speed roll.
Stuck in the spin and plummeting to the ground, the pilot ejected at 8,000ft.
However, “after I ejected, the airplane immediately went completely nosedown and recovered from the spin,” he told the National Museum of the US Air Force.
In a scene that shocked the US Air Force, the aircraft carried on flying for miles and miraculously made a gentle landing on its belly in a snowy Montana field.
Foust explained that there was only “minor damage” and the plane was quickly repaired and operational once again.
The lieutenant even went onto fly his F-106 again during an exercise nine years later.
The Ghost Soviet MiG
A Soviet 1970s-era Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 took off from Bagicz Air Base near Kołobrzeg, Poland on July 4, 1989.
The fearsome aircraft took off for a routine training flight when the Colonel Nikolai Skuridin experienced a sudden engine issue and lost power.
The plane began to nosedive and the pilot ejected after being convinced the MiG-23 would crash.
In fact, the colonel never saw the plane go down as instead it continued to fly and even gained altitude as is cruised on autopilot.
The fighter jet flew in a straight line West, leaving Poland and continuing to cross the Iron Curtain into Nato airspace above West Germany.
Two US F-15 jets scrambled to intercept the aircraft, but instead reported that the ghostly plane was unmanned and missing its canopy.
It crossed Dutch airspace and into Belgium, while the pair of F-15s were instructed to shoot it down when it reached the North Sea to avoid any casualties or damage.
However, after travelling over 1000km the pilotless MiG ran out of fuel before it reached the coast.
It fell from the sky and slammed down into a house near Kortrijk, some 5-10km from the French border.
The deadly crash killed 18-year-old student Wim Delaere as he slept.