An Indian tourist board has poked fun at a multi-million pound Royal Navy stealth fighter which has been stranded at an airport in the country for almost three weeks.
The state-of-the-art F-35B Lightning jet was forced to make an emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport on 14 June after it hit bad weather while flying around 100 nautical miles off the coast of Kerala in southern India.
After being stuck at the airport for more than two weeks, the Kerala tourism body posted an image on its social media mocking the £80m jet that's stationary in India.
The Department of Tourism for Kerala posted on Wednesday what appears to be an AI-rendered image of the fighter jet sitting on the runway.
It is captioned with a five-star review from the jet itself, saying, “Kerala is such an amazing place, I don’t want to leave. Definitely recommend.”
Many commenters found the joke hilarious, complimenting the tourism board for their tongue-in-cheek post of one of the world’s most advanced stealth aircraft that has been forced to stay put while it undergoes repairs.
The Indian Air Force confirmed that the F-35B was conducting sorties in the Indian Ocean from the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales when it had to make the landing.
The jet was “undertaking routine flying outside of the Indian Air Defence Identification Zone” when it encountered difficulties”, the air force said, and Thiruvananthapuram was “earmarked as the emergency recovery field”.
It continued: “On having declared a diversion from an emergency, the F-35B was detected and identified by the IAF's IACCS network and cleared for recovery. The IAF is providing all necessary support for the rectification and subsequent return of the aircraft.”
The Independent understands that a technical issue with the aircraft was identified after it landed at Thiruvananthapuram.
A spokesperson for the British High Commission in Delhi told The Independent: “We are working to repair the UK F-35B at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport as quickly as possible. We thank the Indian Authorities for their continued support.”
The Royal Navy said that the aircraft would be moved to a maintenance hangar once specialist equipment and UK engineering teams arrived in India.
It is unclear when the advanced fighter jet will be able to operate again and leave its parking spot at Thiruvananthapuram airport.
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