I didn’t know RAF jet had crashed until Queen Elizabeth told me, says Boris Johnson

In his upcoming memoir, the former prime minister conceded it was ‘embarrassing’, but was a testament to how well briefed the late Queen was

Boris Johnson did not know an RAF F-35 fighter jet had fallen off an aircraft carrier until he was told about it by Elizabeth II.
The former prime minister conceded it was “doubly embarrassing” to be told about the calamitous incident by the late Queen, but described it as testament to how well briefed she was.
In an upcoming memoir, Unleashed, which is being serialised by the Mail, Mr Johnson said the late Queen “sometimes managed to know things before I had been briefed”.
He said: “It was she who broke it to me that a very expensive RAF F-35 fighter plane had blown a gasket and dropped off its aircraft carrier and into the drink because someone had left a plastic tray over the air intake.”
The crash occurred during routine flying operations in November 2021.
A leaked video showed the £100 million fighter jet accelerating up the ramp of HMS Queen Elizabeth’s flight deck, only for the pilot to eject as it reached the top. The jet then plunged into the Mediterranean Sea below.
After a three-week search, which demanded significant international cooperation, the jet was found in “significant large parts”, according to the Ministry of Defence spokesman at the time. Investigators later believed that a plastic rain cover had been left on and sucked into the jet’s engine.
The jets on board are operated by the renowned “Dambusters” 617 Squadron and have previously participated in strikes against the remnants of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
In the excerpt, Mr Johnson also credited the late Queen for her “deep personal knowledge, not just of history but of decision-makers”.
He said: “If I forgot the name of George II’s battle or the late prime minister of Zambia, she would immediately snap, ‘Dettingen’ or ‘Kenneth Kaunda’, like a pub quiz winner.”
Mr Johnson recalled that on the day of his formal resignation, the pair spoke about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I mentioned our difficulties in persuading our Indian friends to take a tougher line with the Russians,” he reflected, adding: “She remembered something the former Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had said to her in the 1950s.
“‘He told me that India will always side with Russia, and that some things will never change. They just are.’
“I cite that as an illustration of her amazing ability to reassure and to contextualise. Two days later she died.”