NEWS YOU CAN USE? This Website Lets You Track F-35 Stealth Fighters.

An Israeli F-35 was tracked by flight tracking site flightradar24, according to aviation Web site The Aviationist.

One might wonder why a stealth combat aircraft was operating with its transponder on. One possibility is that it was a deliberate move to let Israel’s enemies — notably Syria and Iran — that Israel’s F-35s are out there. Such actions are not unprecedented.

“Increasingly, RC-135s and other strategic ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] platforms, including Global Hawks, operate over highly sensitive regions, such as Ukraine or the Korean Peninsula, with the ADS-B and Mode-S turned on, so that even commercial off the shelf receivers (or public tracking websites) can monitor them,” notes the Aviationist.

However, Israel has made no secret that its first F-35I Adir squadron went operational last year, and that the aircraft has already made its combat debut with strikes on Syria earlier this year. So what would be gained by briefly making an aircraft visible on flight trackers?

Pilot error is the safe guess.