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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – The early voting period is coming to a close Saturday across South Carolina.

Early voting began on Oct. 21 and election officials saw record numbers for turnout. This year marks the first time the state has done one of these periods that is open to any voter, and especially for a presidential election.

“People are excited about this year’s presidential election,” Rosie Brown, director of Berkeley County voter registration and elections, said. “Since early voting, we have seen a phenomenal turnout all over the county. People are wanting to get out and get their vote heard. And they’re participating in early voting in record numbers.”

Isaac Cramer, executive director of Charleston County board of elections, echoed the same message. Mount Pleasant is one of their busiest polling locations and said they are moving the lines as much as they can.

“Here in Mount Pleasant, wait times are 20 to 30 minutes,” Cramer said. “We’re seeing the most voters in the state at this location, so even if you see a line, they’re moving really quickly.”

Charleston County recorded nearly 120,000 votes since early voting began. Although they aren’t seeing as many people show up as last week, many were expected today.

“It seems today is the busiest day, which is what we expected – Friday, last Friday before the election, to be the biggest turnout,” Cramer said. “One thing, we’re just encouraging voters is you still have one more day – it’s tomorrow, from 8:30 to 6.”

Berkeley County added 30 in-person voting machines and 2 more to curbside vote to relieve the wait times this week. Officials said they recorded around 50,000 votes. However, voters are coming to cast their ballots at all hours and there is not necessarily an off-peak time. Brown said one trend she noticed last week, that may be helpful for those going to the polls on the last day.

“People usually get up early on Saturday mornings to do their early voting,” Brown said. “We did notice last Saturday that once the college football games started coming on TV or people going out to those games, the line became shorter at that point in time of that day.”

Marine Corps investigators blamed the pilot for the high-profile crash of a F-35B stealth fighter jet last year near Charleston, S.C., in which the plane continued to fly more than 60 miles after the pilot ejected.

The pilot should have remained in the plane after experiencing electrical malfunctions while nearing his landing location at Joint Base Charleston on Sept. 17, 2023, according to an investigation dated Jan. 18, 2024, but made public by the Marine Corps on Thursday. The F-35’s “advanced automatic flight-control systems” allowed the plane to continue flying itself about 64 miles northeast onto private property near Hemmingway, S.C., where it went unfound for more than a day after it crashed, the investigation concluded.

“The pilot incorrectly diagnosed an out-of-controlled flight emergency and ejected from a flyable aircraft, albeit during a heavy rainstorm compounded with aircraft electrical and display malfunctions,” investigators wrote in the 111-page report.

Despite finding the pilot was wrong to eject, investigators recommended no punishment for the Marine in the case. The pilot’s commanding officer agreed, according to service documents.

The pilot’s name and rank were redacted in the investigation report. Investigators found the pilot was “qualified and current” to fly the advanced aircraft and he was of “sound mind and body” before the crash. The investigation described the pilot as a “highly experienced” aviator with more than 2,800 flight hours in the Marines, primarily on the AV-8B Harrier jet. But the pilot had limited experience on the F-35B, with about 32 hours flying time on that jet before the crash. The pilot was assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 501 of the 2nd Marine Air Wing.

The incident occurred at about 1:30 p.m. local time at Joint Base Charleston shortly after the pilot began procedures to conduct a vertical landing — a feature that allows the Marines’ version of the F-35B to land in a similar fashion to a helicopter. After putting his landing gear down and transitioning into vertical landing mode, the pilot reported his helmet mounted display, which provides flight information and date directly on a F-35 pilot’s helmet visor, flicked on and off at least two times.

The helmet display showed “multiple cautions and warnings” ahead of the landing attempt, the pilot reported. After the second time the instruments cut out, the pilot “determined that a runway landing was not feasible” and reverted the F-35 into its regular flight mode, he told investigators. The display flicked off again, prompting the pilot to believe the aircraft was uncontrollable and that ejection was necessary.

After the pilot ejected from the aircraft — eventually landing without major injury in a backyard in a residential neighborhood about one mile from the base — the F-35 continued to fly for 11 minutes and 21 seconds before crashing into dense forest about 64 nautical miles from where the pilot ejected. The Joint Base Charleston tower was able initially to track the jet, but lost radar contact with it after it flew about 23 nautical miles, the investigation found.

With the plane missing, Marine officials launched a massive hunt for the jet, which included military assets and civilian law enforcement. The jet would not be found until about 27 hours after the pilot ejected.

Investigators found the low flight path and the F-35s stealth features likely contributed to Joint Base Charleston’s tower losing contact with the jet. They found numerous factors including the loss of radar contact, “little to no fire” created in the crash, and the crash site’s location deep in dense forest contributed to the difficulties finding the aircraft.

Even from the sky, “the crash site was hardly noticeable,” the investigators wrote.

“The only visible aircraft part from the air was a large chunk of the engine,” the report reads.

Investigators credited the search teams with finding the F-35 and cleaning up the debris in an environmentally conscious way. The cleanup process took about one month.

No people were injured on the ground in the crash, but the Marines said it resulted in the loss of privately owned “forested land and crops.”

It also ended in the loss of the F-35B, worth about $100 million, investigators wrote.

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Marine investigators say an F-35B stealth fighter pilot grew disoriented amid multiple system failures while flying in stormy weather over North Charleston in 2023, prompting the pilot to eject even though the jet was still capable of flying.

Investigators identified an "electrical event" during the flight that triggered multiple malfunctions, including the aircraft's radios, transponder and air navigation system.

Glitches also caused the plane's $400,000 helmet-mounted display to flicker at least three times.

But the investigation concluded that the pilot's decision to bail out of the jet was "ultimately inappropriate" because other instrumentation was "partially operational." As proof, the report said: "Furthermore, the aircraft continued to fly for an extended period after ejection."

The Marine Corps report redacted the pilot's name, but a Defense News story Oct. 31 identified him as Col. Charles "Tre" Del Pizzo, 49.

The Marine investigative report said no punitive actions were taken against the pilot. However, Defense News quoted Del Pizzo as saying he recently lost command of a squadron in Arizona because of the mishap.

The report comes more than a year after two Beaufort-based F-35Bs were flying near thunderstorms over Charleston International Airport. Under these dark clouds, one pilot ejected. But his F-35B kept flying.

Search parties deployed across the region, hunting for a crash site. The situation grew more bizarre as time passed without any evidence of a crash. Social media memes spread, including one with an F-35 on a milk carton and the word “Missing” splashed across it.

About 27 hours later, search crews finally found the wreckage. Debris was strewn across a field and swamp in the Indiantown community in rural Williamsburg County, about 64 miles from North Charleston. The crash had burned patches of pines brown and scattered fragments across a cotton field.

Military cleanup units arrived, erected signs declaring the area a national defense zone and excavated a crater big enough to hold a couple of trucks.

Then, more than a year passed without any word about what caused the ejection, a delay that raised eyebrows. The Marine Corps normally issues a preliminary report within a few months, Dan Grazier, a defense expert with the Stimson Center think tank, told The Post and Courier earlier this year.

“The longer (the investigation) drags out and we don’t hear about the findings, the more suspicious it gets that there’s some systemic problem with the aircraft,” he said.

The Marine investigation ultimately found a combination of system and pilot errors led to the ejection and crash.

Details of F-35B ejection

In its investigation, the Marine Corps said the Beaufort-based pilots knew the weather might be bad over Charleston the afternoon of Sept. 17, 2023, but forecasters predicted at least four miles of visibility, so the mission went forward.

But the weather soon grew worse, with lightning detected within 10 miles of Joint Base Charleston. The two pilots completed their training mission and planned to land at the Charleston base. One landed, but the second ran into trouble.

The F-35B is capable of hovering, and as the pilot neared the base, he pressed a button that converts the aircraft from conventional flight to hover mode.

A minute later, displays began to malfunction, the Marine report found. The pilot (identified by Defense News as Col. Del Pizzo) raised his landing gear and put the plane back into its non-hover mode.

In an interview with investigators, the pilot said his helmet-mounted display flickered. The display allows pilots to see through the jet's gray skin, thanks to six external infrared cameras on the plane. It also is the pilot's critical link to flight and tactical sensors.

The pilot said he saw multiple malfunctions on his helmet display, and that he thought the jet might have an engine problem. He lost contact with air traffic controllers. He saw more failures.

"Unsure of which instruments he could trust, (the pilot) perceived he had entered out-of-control flight."

The pilot then "ejected from a flyable aircraft, albeit during a heavy rainstorm compounded with aircraft electrical and display malfunctions," investigators later concluded.

Ejection and crash details

The Marines offered somewhat conflicting details about his experience.

One section of the report described him as a "highly experienced fighter/attack pilot" and an instructor VMFAT-501 in Beaufort. Yet, he also was "relative novice in the F-35B." Another section noted that the pilot had more than 1,200 flight hours on the F-35 before the mishap.

Del Pizzo's official Marine Corps biography said he is from Atlanta and completed his Marine Corps Parris Island training in 1993. He was deployed six times, including roles in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the Second Gulf War and Operation Inherent Resolve, the international war against the Islamic State. He had more than 3,000 hours in multiple military and civilian aircraft.

Ejecting from a fighter jet is a lesson in violence. A line of explosives blows off the canopy. Straps pin a pilot's arms and legs to the seat. Air bags inflate around the pilot's neck and head. A rocket fires, launching the pilot into the air, a process that generates as much as 18 Gs.

During Del Pizzo's ejection, the force ripped off his helmet and mask. The pilot saw he was floating into a residential neighborhood and used his steering toggles to avoid power lines and land in a backyard. A resident helped him into the kitchen and called 911.

The Post and Courier obtained a recording of that call.

“… I guess we got a pilot in our house, and he says he got ejected, or he ejected from the plane,” the resident told the dispatcher. “So can we just see if we can get an ambulance please?”

“I’m sorry, what happened?” the dispatcher said.

Del Pizzo took the phone.

“I’m the pilot. We need to get rescue rolling. I’m not sure where the airplane is. It would have crash-landed somewhere. I ejected.”

Del Pizzo said he was OK but that his back hurt. The dispatcher asked, "OK, and what caused the fall?"

“An aircraft failure,” Del Pizzo answered.

After paramedics arrived, Del Pizzo walked to the ambulance and was taken to the Medical University of South Carolina.

Above, his plane traced an unusual route.

It flew "in a nominally trimmed condition" for 11 minutes and 21 seconds, climbing at a 10-degree angle to about 9,300 feet, then descending in a right turn.

The jet then began "clipping the top of a densely forested area," the report found.

The investigation concludes the jet was able to continue flying due to its "advanced automatic flight-control systems."

The report said Air Force personnel in Charleston lost contact with the plane near Bonneau, about 25 miles north of the base.

Marine investigators offered several reasons for the 27-hour delay in finding the wreckage: the loss of radar contact; its flight below air traffic control's radar horizon; and its stealth technology.

More questions

Investigators cleared the pilot of dereliction of duty. Del Pizzo assumed command of a squadron in Yuma, Arizona, in June, months after investigators had done much of its investigation.

But on Oct. 2, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Bradford Gering relieved Del Pizzo of his command in Yuma, Defense News reported. Gering reportedly cited a "loss of trust and confidence in his ability to execute the responsibilities of his command.”

The Post and Courier could not immediately reach Del Pizzo for comment.

The report comes against a background of air space successes and questions about the jet's reliability.

Together, the three F-35 variants make up the nation’s most expensive weapons program and among the most important. It's known as a fifth generation fighter, meaning it was designed to replace stalwarts such as the F-16 and F-18 fighters.

The Marines said the plane's loss amounted to $100 million, but other cost data suggest a higher price tag of about $150 million apiece, including all necessary and supplies.

The ejection and crash in South Carolina follow at least 10 other F-35 crashes since 2018 and come amid longstanding questions about mounting costs, which may pass the $2 trillion mark for the whole program, according to one recent federal report.

For nearly four years, the Air Force limited certain F-35s from flying near thunderstorms over fears that lightning could cause the fuel system to explode.

Inadequate training and the lack of spare parts also have been chronic problems. The U.S. fleet of F-35s has failed its readiness goals for the past six years, the Government Accountability Office said in an Oct. 21, 2024, analysis.

At the same time, F-35s are being used increasingly in combat operations, including Israel's recent attack against Iran.

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Behind the scenes of South Carolina Aquarium’s next exhibit in Charleston

A women-focused construction organization recently got a sneak peek of South Carolina Aquarium’s next exhibit.

Over 30 members of the Charleston Chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction attended a hard hat tour of the much-anticipated South Carolina Aquarium Boeing Learning Lab being constructed at the Charleston Maritime Center next to the International African American History Museum, according to a news release.

Trident Construction hosted the all-female group of leaders in the construction industry. This was an opportunity for the group to survey the project site and learn how Trident Construction, along with architect John Ciccarelli and engineers, are working together to create a customized learning lab for the South Carolina Aquarium, the release stated.

“There are many talented female leaders in the construction industry, especially here in Charleston,” said Tim Kennedy, president of Trident Construction, in the release. “Our company is thrilled to support these extraordinary individuals by hosting an event for them at one of our favorite projects, The Boeing Learning Lab.”

Jordan Dickens, who is on the board of directors of NAWIC, said the non-profit organization feels it’s important to ensure the next generation sees the important role women are playing in the construction industry.

“All our members are experts in their field,” Dickens said in the release, “whether that’s owning their own construction firm as I do or working in what was once considered a man’s role such as plumbing, electricity, roofing and HVAC, they do it all and they do it extremely well.”

Related: South Carolina Aquarium breaks ground on Boeing Learning Lab

Situated along the waterfront of the Charleston Harbor and a short walk from the South Carolina Aquarium, the Boeing Learning Lab will comprise 8,500 square feet of educational space that includes four indoor classrooms, one open-air classroom, a broadcast studio to conduct virtual programs, and office space for aquarium staff.

The Learning Lab, which will be run by the South Carolina Aquarium’s education department and will double the number of students they can serve annually through their core education offerings, including a slate of teen programs, including the High School Intern Program and Teen Science Cafés, the release stated.

The Boeing Learning Lab is a collaboration with the city of Charleston, and broke ground July 2023, and is estimated to be complete by December 2024.

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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Those both for and against the transportation sales tax are making their last-ditch effort to sway undecided voters.

Two separate news conferences were held on Wednesday. The first urged voters to vote yes and the second urged voters to vote no.

If the tax is renewed, Charleston County residents would pay a half-cent sales tax for 25 years, starting in 2027. From that money, $5.4 billion will go toward 22 large-scale transportation, drainage and greenbelt projects.

Officials for the tax say the renewal is necessary to fund several projects that will relieve traffic congestion and accidents.

They believe voting no is a vote to kill Charleston’s transportation program.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with some agenda, we just need to get it done,” North Charleston Mayor Reggie Burgess said. ”If we can get it done, the county, city and state can do so much more around that. It’s time, it’s time.”

Vice Chairwoman Jenny Honeycutt is in favor of the tax and says there’s a lot more to do as the county continues to grow.

“One of the very misleading messages is that parts of the county may not gain as much from this, but we are regionally connected, and it has always been our priority to make sure every area is represented,” Honeycutt said. “In other sales taxes, east of the Cooper has seen much more improvement while Johns Island and south parts of Charleston haven’t, and now it’s their turn.”

Officials against the tax say the only project listed as a priority is the Mark Clark Extension, which will consume almost half of the entire 2024 tax and lead to overdevelopment.

Councilman Larry Kobrovsky is voting no and wants to see council to create something that covers all needs of the county in a fiscally responsible manner.

“They are hundreds of millions of dollars short of being able to build those other things and they aren’t committed to it, those other projects are just a wish list,” Kobrovsky said. ”There’s no way of knowing whether or not it’s going to be done. I ask people to vote now and make us come back with something that is definite.”

The decision is up to the voters, and we’ll know what they’ve decided in less than a week.

For more information on the referendum, click here.

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