India, Aug. 28 -- A US Air Force F-35 pilot spent nearly an hour on an airborne conference call with Lockheed Martin engineers trying to fix a landing gear malfunction before ejecting, as the $200 million fighter jet plunged to the ground in Alaska earlier this year, an accident report has revealed.

The crash took place on January 28 at Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks. Video footage showed the aircraft dropping vertically before exploding in a fireball. The pilot ejected safely with only minor injuries, but the plane was destroyed.

An Air Force investigation found that ice in the hydraulic lines of the F-35's nose and main landing gears prevented them from deploying properly, CNN reported.

After takeoff, the pilot was unable to ful...