Originally Posted by
AirBear
It has fuel tank inerting installed to prevent that, looks like the system might spring a leak. This is more along the lines of an AD than a catastrophic defect. It will have an operating limitation until fixed. If we get in a war in the meantime they'll waiver the operating limitation (DoD is flexible that way).
Airliners flew without fuel tank inerting for many decades, I can only recall one documented in-flight explosion.