And another tidbit surfaced in last week's Senate hearing on the F-35: During the course of the Marines "expeditionary" deployment at 29 Palms, two F-35B jets were downed by FOD. This was not widely publicized by the Marines, SLD, the program office, or the other usual suspects. It was contained in written testimony from the DOT&E. No wonder some have their knives out for that organization - it seems it is the only source of factual and non-biased / untainted information on the program.