The British F-35B fighter jet was finally towed to a hangar on Sunday after 22 days of staying put on the tarmac of Thiruvananthapuram airport. But while British defence personnel took a cautious and technical approach to dealing with the aircraft’s hydraulic failure, the internet, as always, wasted no time in giving the entire episode a humorous twist.
The towing video, released by ANI, showed the cutting-edge stealth jet being slowly moved after being grounded since June 14 — when it made an emergency landing due to bad weather and low fuel during operations off the Kerala coast, which was followed by strategic assessments, and failed repair attempts.
The sluggish tow was seen as more comedy than contingency.
“Finally, the F-35 makes a move,” posted one user on X, referencing the painfully slow crawl of one of the world’s most advanced fighter jets. Another user chimed in with a deadpan suggestion: “Should have used an autorickshaw to tow it.”
One widely circulated meme imagined the F-35B had landed in China instead of India. In a detailed timeline, it joked that within six hours, the aircraft would have been scanned; in 12, reverse-engineered; in 24, test-flown; and in 48, sold to Pakistan under a new name — the “JF-35E”.
The meme, which took a jab at Chinese engineering, was captioned: “Efficiency meets espionage. Made in China, Assembled in Secrecy.”
Closer home, the fighter jet was given a proper Indian identity. A fake Aadhaar card made the rounds, renaming the jet as “F-35B Nair”, born on June 14, the day it landed in Kerala, with an address at “Trivandrum Airport” and status marked “Under Repair”.
Earlier, Kerala Tourism department had joined the fun, posting a fabricated review by “F-35B” praising the state’s hospitality: “Kerala is such an amazing place, I don’t want to leave. Definitely recommend.”
Perhaps the most unexpected entry came from the another X handle.
Sharing an image of the jet wrapped in a protective plastic sheet, the user leveraged the moment to promote public health awareness, posting: “Stealthy? Still need protection. HIV and STDs can be transmitted through unprotected sexual contact. Always use a condom.”
Another meme imagined four engineers carrying dismantled parts of the jet on their shoulders. The caption? “British engineers after seeing Kerala’s parking charges” — mocking both the delay and the idea of cost-cutting repairs.
The F-35B, a short takeoff and vertical landing variant, had diverted to Thiruvananthapuram on June 14 while operating 100 nautical miles off Kerala as part of the UK Royal Navy’s HMS Prince of Wales Carrier Strike Group. After Indian authorities facilitated a safe landing and provided logistical support, a hydraulic failure detected during pre-departure checks grounded the aircraft indefinitely.
Despite efforts by Royal Navy technicians, the problem proved too complex to be fixed on site, leading to the arrival of a larger British technical team over the weekend aboard a Royal Air Force A400M Atlas aircraft.
