Europe grounds its stealth fleet

Breaking: RAF grounds F-35 fleet after loss of US-operated data services. Netherlands, Denmark and Norway confirm similar groundings. Emergency NATO session called.

Sorry, a stupid question. Does "grounded" mean they are broken, or that someone has told them not to fly?

I cannot work out from the news which one it is and they seem very different to me.

Not a stupid question at all — it is THE question and the reporting is bad at it.

They are not broken. Every one of those aircraft could take off right now. A safety system will not clear them because it cannot phone home to a server in the United States.

So: told not to fly, by a computer, on behalf of a country that is not theirs.

Oh. That is much worse, isn't it.

Every defence procurement committee on earth opened a new agenda item this morning and the item is one sentence long: "what in our inventory has a switch we do not own?"

I do software. The answer is going to be "almost everything" and it is going to take four years to find out.

Prime Minister Frederiksen: "This is an unprecedented, hostile breach of sovereign defence agreements. We are seeking immediate bilateral consultations with the White House."

Serious question from someone who builds things for a living: if you were the Japanese or the Koreans this morning, would you sign the next order?

Because I would not. And that is my industry. That is my town.

The important detail is which aircraft are still flying combat air patrols this morning.

Typhoon. Rafale. Gripen.

Not one of them depends on a server in Texas. Twenty years of procurement argument settled in seventy-two hours.

Everyone is asking whether there is a kill switch. Wrong question.

There is no kill switch. There is a subscription. And the vendor has stopped taking your money.

We built those planes. We sold them those planes. We maintain those planes — at OUR cost, on OUR computers, for THIRTY YEARS.

Now they want the planes without us. Doesn't work that way. Never did. They just never had to think about it before.

THANK YOU. Thirty years of paying for their defence while they lecture us about our own elections.

If they want an air force they can build an air force.

I teach 8th grade. Tomorrow morning a room full of thirteen year olds is going to ask me whether we just sabotaged our allies' planes, and I do not have a good answer.

Whatever this is, it is going to be in a textbook. Please think about which paragraph.

Genuine question and not a gotcha: who buys the next batch?

I have spent thirty-one years welding things that get sold overseas. If the customer finds out the switch is in Texas, the customer buys French next time. That is my pension you are negotiating with.

I did two tours with Danes. Small army, no complaints, went where we went.

You can think Europe underpays and still think this was a filthy way to do it. Both of those fit in one head. Mine has been holding them all afternoon.

I do not really understand what happened with the aeroplanes. My grandson says it is serious. Is it serious?

Eleanor, it is serious but nobody is hurt and nobody is likely to be hurt tonight. Some allied aircraft cannot fly because a computer service was switched off.

Go and look at your birds. I mean that kindly. There is nothing you can do about it before morning.

Thank you dear. I had a woodpecker today.

I am a plumber in Copenhagen. I have never written anything political here in nine years.

The Americans have switched off our aeroplanes. I do not know what to do with that sentence. My father worked at the base at Karup. We were the good ones. We went to Afghanistan with them.

Something is stuck at Norfolk. Truman has been loading out for days and has not sailed. Three sources say the hold is not operational. It is a signature. Somebody in the building will not sign.