Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter aircraft can be jailbroken "just like an iPhone," the Netherlands' defense secretary has claimed.

Gijs Tuinman made the comments during a podcast interview after being asked whether the aircraft's software could be modified by European forces without permission from the US should it withdraw as an ally.

"The F-35 is truly a shared product," Tuinman told BNR's Boekestijn en De Wijk show (translated from Dutch). "The British make the Rolls-Royce engines, and the Americans simply need them too. And even if this mutual dependency doesn't result in software updates, the F-35, in its current state, is still a better aircraft than other types of fighters."

"If you still want to upgrade despite everything, I'm going to say something I should never say, but I will anyway: you can jailbreak an F-35 just like an iPhone."

Tuinman did not elaborate on what he meant by this, but his comments suggest that European forces currently managing a fleet of F-35s would be capable of maintaining their aircraft's software, with or without the help of US manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

The Register contacted the aerospace engineering company for its take on Tuinman's words, but it referred us to the US government, which did not immediately reply.

One person who has experience in tinkering with aircraft tech is Ken Munro, whose company Pen Test Partners has poked under the hood of commercial planes many times.

He told us that while he was not familiar with the F-35 specifically, Tuinman's comments and what the Dutch defense secretary implied did not surprise him. However, without physical access to a fighter jet, the chance of a jailbreak becoming public knowledge is highly unlikely.

"Unlike consumer devices, such as the iPhone, which is easily accessed by the research community, and therefore subject to their 'attention,' one can't go buy an F-35 on eBay," he said.

"The barrier to entry for researchers and hackers is simply too high for military hardware. Hence, we rely on defense contractors getting security right the first time. That lack of a community doing its own research means that accidental and unintentional security issues aren't likely to be as easily found. Indeed, innovative attacks aren't likely to be carried out, as researchers can't access the required hardware."

"There is also a commercial motivation to discovering jailbreaks on consumer devices such as the iPhone."

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Another reason why jailbreaking an F-35 won't be nearly as easy as commercial gadgets is the way in which its software is managed.

According to a video published by Lockheed Martin in 2017, the F-35 Lightning II is updated through the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS).

ALIS has several applications devoted to various fleet management tasks, as well as for accessing an aircraft's technical data. Updates are delivered through service packs, much like any other major software update, every year or two.

Israel is the only country to have negotiated a deal with Lockheed Martin, allowing it to run its own software on its F-35I fleet.

Tuinman's comments come nearly a year after Joachim Schranzhofer, head of comms at German defense contractor Hensoldt, stoked fears that the US could remotely disable all European fleets.

Speaking to Bild, within the context of the US pausing military aid to Ukraine – to which it supplied F-16 aircraft – Schranzhofer said the idea of a remote "kill switch" was "more than just a rumor."

At the time, wider fears of the US's power over F-35 aircraft and their updates spread across Europe.

Portugal had already announced that its procurement plans for F-35s had been dropped following US political concerns, while Tussell data showed the UK's defense budget was being directed ever closer to Europe and away from the US. ®