Will PLA Navy Try To Snatch Crashed F-35 From Bottom Of South China Sea?

A day after U.S. Navy's F-35C Lightning II stealth fighter crashed onto the deck of an aircraft carrier before plunging into the South China Sea, the mission to retrieve the wreckage of the jet has begun.

The complex mission is reportedly very significant as the U.S. doesn't want its competitors, including Russia and China, laying their hands on the sensitive components of the highly advanced jet.

The U.S. Seventh Fleet has confirmed that the F-35C had fallen off USS Carl Vinson's deck after the crash, despite the initial statement mentioning nothing about it, reported Navy Times.

The Navy has not revealed much about its plan to recover the jet but U.S. 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. Nicholas Lingo confirmed to CNN on Wednesday that "the U.S. Navy is making recovery operations arrangements."

Though the Chinese media has reported about the incident citing foreign media reports, there wasn't any official version. But analysts are sure that the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) would be looking for the wreckage.

Mark Cancian, a senior advisor for the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ International Security Program, believes it is important to ensure that the lost jet doesn't fall into the hands of China.

"This is our most sophisticated aircraft, it has all kinds of electronics onboard that our adversaries would love to get a hold of," Cancian told Navy Times.

Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii, agrees. "China will try to locate and survey it thoroughly using submarines and one of its deep-diving submersibles," Schuster told CNN.

He said China might even make a claim for salvage rights based on its territorial claims in the disputed waters. "Salvaging the plane with commercial and coast guard assets will enable Beijing to claim it is recovering a potential environmental hazard or foreign military equipment from its territorial waters," Schuster said.

China claims 90 percent of the South China Sea, though the claim is contested by neighboring nations and the U.S. which conducts regular Freedom Of Navigation Operations.

Reports add that even Russia might try and search for the jet, especially since it possesses a highly capable fleet of special mission submarines and surface vessels that can carry out deep-sea salvage and underwater spy missions.

The U.S. Navy had said in a statement that the F-35 had a landing mishap on board USS Carl Vinson on Monday and that the pilot was ejected safely. Six sailors onboard the carrier were also injured but all are reportedly safe.

Though it hasn't mentioned how exactly the accident occurred, further reports said "impact to the flight deck is superficial and all equipment for flight operations is operational."

The U.S. Navy certainly does have its own fleet of surface ships with extensive deep-sea salvage capabilities and it had assisted when a Royal Navy-owned F-35C crashed into the Meditteranean last November.

The F-35C Lightning II is the first and the world's only long-range stealth strike fighter designed and built explicitly for Navy carrier operations.