COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A Marine investigation alleges the pilot of an advanced fighter jet ejected from the plane when he didn’t need to, causing the F-35 to fly unmanned for 11 minutes before you fall Last year in rural South Carolina.

Military authorities found neither the plane nor its wreckage more than 24 hours, It’s a predicament that the investigative report released Thursday blamed on the $100 million plane’s stealth technology, as well as a non-functioning transponder and the fact that the plane was flying at low altitude with a system that automatically stabilized the flight without pilot control.

While the pilot was trying to land at Joint Base Charleston in heavy rain in September 2023 after a 50-minute training flight with another F-35, the jet experienced multiple system failures.

Lightning was reported nearby and the plane reportedly experienced an “electrical event” that caused malfunctions in its radios, transponders and air navigation system. The pilot’s helmet display also turned on and off three times. The exact nature of what happened was obscured in the publicly released report.

The pilot later said he had no information about where he was in relation to the ground and wasn’t sure what instruments he could trust, so he decided to eject.

However, Navy investigators determined that there was no need to abandon the plane because the plane’s computer was still controlling its flight, as evidenced by the jet. float more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) and more than 11 minutes without a pilot.

The backup devices were still providing accurate data and the backup radio was at least partially functional, according to the report.

Investigators were not sure what data the pilot received or what he saw in his helmet because the crash recorder did not record that information, the report said.

The 47-year-old pilot survived the crash on September 17, 2023; He parachuted into the backyard of a house in North Charleston and asked the astonished homeowner. call 911.

He told the operator that his back hurt but that he was otherwise fine. The pilot was not identified in the nearly 400, sometimes heavily redacted, pages the Marine Corps released about the crash.

Some parts of the report are also carefully worded. Investigators wrote that the jet was difficult to find and that “the loss of positive contact was also attributable in part to the F-35B’s low observable technology.”

The missing jet caused a media storm. Memes put images of F-35s on missing posters and milk cartons. The Navy carefully tried to explain how a $100 million plane with many secret components could disappear.

The strangeness of the accident was also revealed in rather jargonous military reports. A situation report released the afternoon after the crash lists dozens of priorities: “1.A.1 Locate missing F-35 aircraft.”

The jet crashed in rural Williamsburg County. The report stated that it took 17 days to collect and examine the debris and clean up spilled fuel and other hazards from the forest, at a cost of more than $2.1 million.