Imagine if a state-of-the-art, wildly expensive, imported fighter jet of the Indian Air Force had to force-land in another country that is outside its ‘comfort zone’, could not take off again despite multiple repair efforts and therefore had to be carted back home in pieces…. There would have been derisive noises from around the world, led by the Western media and amplified by the local press, and memes about bullock carts would have flown thick and fast.

And yet, a fighter aircraft fitting that description—the F-35B Lightning—of the UK’s Royal Air Force landed in Thiruvananthapuram on June 14 and languished there for nearly a month, not responding to the ministrations of British engineers brought in from near and far. Now it has been towed into a hangar at that very airport for more intensive examination and may well be flown back to UK. Could the much-touted jet have a more ignominious Indian holiday?

It was clever of the Kerala Tourism department to take advantage of Britain’s embarrassment by putting out an ad showing the fighter jet enjoying its holiday in “God’s Own Country". All the critiques were in good humour; there were no derisive remarks, at least from Indians on social media, about the state of UK’s armed forces’ engineering and repair capabilities. The reaction to an IAF fighter jet being grounded anywhere would not have been as genteel.

More so as mystery shrouds why the F-35B had to land on terra firma in Kerala in the first place, rather than returning to the aircraft carrier HMS Prince Of Wales, the Fleet Flagship of the Royal Navy—its most prestigious vessel. The plane and ship were part of the UK’s naval........

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