U.S. working on plan for future F-35 incidents: Air Force

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U.S. working on plan for future F-35 incidents: Air Force

By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Military officials hope to prevent the kind of confusion that followed a recent engine failure that grounded Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jets for more than three weeks, the U.S. Air Force's top officer said on Wednesday. Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh said a memorandum now being drafted would suggest ways to better share information and determine which parties needed to involved in any future incidents. He defended the initial response to a June 23 engine fire when asked about reports that the Air Force's investigation initially shut out both the Pentagon's F-35 program office and officials from the engine's manufacturer, Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies. "The F-35 has now flown 8,700 sorties over 14,000 flight hours, and this is the first time we've had a major engine fire," he said.

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