F 22 Airplane

The Air Force acknowledged Tuesday that a Lockheed F-22 prototype "crashed" at Edwards Air Force Base last Saturday, reversing its original statement that the jet fighter had simply made a "forced landing." The change by the Air Force indicates that the incident was far more serious than previously indicated and involved a loss of control by the pilot.

A prototype Lockheed F-22 jet fighter caught fire and burned extensively on the main runway at Edwards Air Force Base on Saturday after experiencing problems during a test flight by a Lockheed company pilot, who escaped with minor injuries. The Air Force said the pilot decided to make an emergency landing after the aircraft experienced "uncommanded oscillations"--meaning, apparently, that it began to vibrate--during touch-and-go landing maneuvers.

The Air Force selected a team led by Lockheed to produce its top-of-the-line fighter jet Tuesday, rejecting Northrop's competing proposal for the $72-billion program, potentially the most lucrative in aerospace history. The decision is a painful blow to Northrop, which will have to lay off hundreds of workers in Los Angeles and cancel plans to hire thousands of others. Lockheed Corp. will do most of its work in Georgia.

The advanced tactical fighter contract, awarded Tuesday by the Air Force, is a watershed in the aerospace-defense business. It's a big job to begin with: $95 billion for 650 planes that will serve as the chief Air Force fighter until at least 2025. But the significance is greater because the ATF may be the last big military aircraft order in this century. The ATF award may signal a new phase of consolidation in the aerospace industry, a reduction in the number of aircraft contractors.

The aerospace industry in Southern California lost big when the Air Force on Tuesday decided to give the $14-billion development contract for the advanced tactical fighter to a team led by Lockheed Corp. The initial impact will be in the hundreds of jobs that will be eliminated by Los Angeles-based Northrop Corp., the Lockheed team's vanquished competitor.

The good news for Southern California in Tuesday's announcement that a Lockheed-led team will build the nation's next fighter jet was spread rather thin. Lockheed estimates that the F-22 advanced tactical fighter project will generate 5,000 jobs for subcontractors in Southern California. But many subcontractors expect the new jobs simply to replace positions in expiring programs; the net employment gain will be far smaller, according to company spokesmen.