The US Navy is going to fish a wrecked F-35 out of the South China Sea. Here's how it's likely to get its stealth jet back.

• An F-35C stealth fighter crash-landed on the deck of a carrier in the South China Sea.

• The US needs to make sure that no one else gets their hands on the sunken aircraft.

• It may take a few weeks to recover the plane.

The US Navy is working to recover an F-35C fighter jet that crash-landed on the Navy aircraft carrier the Carl Vinson in the South China Sea.

The crash occurred Monday during routine flight operations, as the Navy characterized it in an official statement. A helicopter recovered the pilot after he ejected. Seven sailors were injured in the incident.

The US has to pull the F-35 out of the South China Sea to recover technology and make sure no one else can get their hands on the plane.

The F-35 is a fifth-generation fighter jet that has taken many years to develop and has significant funding to research and develop.

If the Chinese were able to get a copy of an actual F-35 to reverse engineer its features, it would be a huge opportunity.

If they got a hold of an actual F-35, it would help them figure out how to better counter it. China is developing and fielding its own fighters to compete with the US.

The Navy F-35C is the world's only long-range stealth strike fighter designed and built specifically for Navy carrier operations.

Clark doesn't think that China would risk an altercation with the US if they got an F-35, though there is a chance that they would try to get the plane.

Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii, told CNN that the Chinese military is likely to search for the plane and gather as much intel as they can.

He told the outlet that China will try to locate and survey it thoroughly using submarines and deep diving vessels.

The US will likely use survey vessels and remotely operated vehicles to search for the sunken F-35 before using cranes to lift it out of the water.

Clark said that the US will be watching the area during the operation, which will probably take a few weeks.

The US has had to retrieve airplanes, weapons, and in one case a Russian submarine off the seafloor, so it's certainly doable, but the recovery mission may be more difficult if the plane is not intact.

Clark speculated that there may be a bunch of Chinese maritime militia boats in and around you, watching you, getting in the way, or harassing you, making it difficult to get the job done.

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps officer and current senior advisor for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Navy Times that it would be relatively easy to raise the plane from the water in the South China Sea.

Cancian believes the plane is mostly intact because it hit the carrier deck before falling into the water.

He told the Navy Times that it sounds like it hit the deck hard and rolled off the edge.

Only two F-35 crashes have involved a carrier, and this is one of them. Insider previously reported that the previous carrier incident happened in November. The pilot of the plane was forced to ditch the plane in the Mediterranean.

The British newspaper The Sun reported that it took about two weeks to find and pull the F-35B from the water. Senior military leaders were worried that Russia would find the remains if they weren't recovered. Russia and China both have fifth-generation fighters.

There is no danger or compromise to sensitive equipment on the aircraft, officials told the British media outlet after the successful recovery.

The original article is on Business Insider.