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.
@factcheck_anna · 13 Jan 2026 · 09:58
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.
Availability across the allied F-35 force falls by more than half in seventy-two hours. The United Kingdom brings forensic logs to Brussels showing the severance was administrative…