WASHINGTON – A US F-35 stealth bomber suffered millions of dollars indamage after being hit by a bird during take-off from an air base in Japan,the US Marine Corps said in a statement Wednesday.

“On May 7, 2019 an F-35B with Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine AircraftWing aborted take-off due to a bird strike at Marine Corps Air StationIwakuni and safely taxied off the runway,” the statement said.

The pilot was not hurt in the incident, it said.

A damage assessment report has not yet been completed but the Marine Corpsclassified the incident as category “A”, meaning the damage bill isexpected to exceed $2 million.

Last month an F-16 fighter jet operating in the United States was hit by ahawk, the US Air Force told a military-focused website.

Photos of the April 17 incident showed the mangled remains of a bird in thelanding gear of the plane.

The F-35 program was launched in the 1990s and has cost almost $400billion, making it the most expensive weapons system ever developed by thePentagon.

The defense department plans to build some 2,500 of the warplanes in thedecades to come.

The F-35B is a short take-off and landing variant of the plane, developedfor the Marine Corps. Each plane costs $115 million to build.

In April, an F-35A stealth fighter went down off the coast of Japan,sparking a lengthy search by Japanese and American salvage crews.

Some debris was recovered but the pilot’s body has not been found and theUS Navy announced earlier this month it was calling off the search. -APP/AFP