To date, no Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jet has ever been shot down by enemy fire. The fifth-generation stealth plane has remained unstoppable in the air. However, on the ground, the F-35 has faced a wide variety of threats—chiefly of a bureaucratic nature.

Supply chain disruption following the COVID-19 global pandemic delayed F-35 part shipments and hindered completion of the Technology Refresh-3 (TR-3) hardware and software upgrade. This, in turn, resulted in a year-long pause in deliveries. The aircraft were also found to have issues operating near actual lightning storms.

However, perhaps the greatest direct danger to the F-35 has been from pro-Palestinian activists in the United Kingdom, where they have carried out “attacks” on the firms producing components for the advanced multirole combat aircraft.

The most recent occurred just hours into the New Year, when masked activists wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyeh headscarves “smashed their way into the Bruntons Aero Products site, on an industrial estate outside Edinburgh,” the UK’s Telegraph newspaper reported.

The group

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