News - Middle East: Israel has put a halt on its stealth fighter F-35 aircraft’s activities, citing a US-reported discovery of defects in the warplane’s pilot ejection system.

The Israeli regime’s air force announced in a statement that it would ground its advanced F-35 fighters for training flights, a day after the United States reported to have discovered a problem with the stealth jets’ ejector seats.

The statement said the aircraft would undergo inspections for a few days and that any individual F-35 operations would be conducted by special authorization of the air force chief.

“The examinations must be done in a strict and thorough manner in order to return the fleet to full competence while maintaining a high safety standard,” the statement added.

The announcement was made after the US Air Force said on Friday that it was temporarily grounding its F-35 fleet over a problem with the cartridges used to blast out the ejector seats in the event of an emergency.

The US Air Force said the possible defects in the explosive cartridges occurred on three American military aircraft, including the F-35, which forced a temporary halt to some US operations.

Tel Aviv has agreed to purchase at least 50 F-35 fighter jets from the US defense contractor Lockheed Martin. The regime has so far received 33 aircraft and the remaining planes are slated to be delivered in batches of twos and threes until 2024.