This particular plane belonged to the Marine Corp, they did issue a 2-day stand down to all F-35s in their inventory.
I know this sound farfetched, but worth talking about, I can’t get over how the plane kept flying after the pilot ejected and the military didn’t know where the plane was for a period time.
Maybe my concerned is unwarranted, but if an experienced pilot ejects, I assumed the plane was just about to crash and couldn’t be recovered, in this case the pilot ejected and the plane kept flying.
We don’t know if the pilot ejected or was ejected.
Maybe the malfunction was the pilot pulling the eject handle without adequate reason to.
Whatever really happened, it will be ruled as “Pilot Error”.