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A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighter takes off from Kadena Air Base on the southern island of Okinawa in Japan. There have been years of investigations into why the stealth fighter pilots were getting dizzy and disoriented.Greg Baker/ASSOCIATED PRESS Visit the Photo Place |
Date published: 9/28/2012
Associated Press
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan
--Years before F-22 pilots began getting dizzy in the cockpit, before one struggled to breathe as he tried to pull out of a fatal crash, before two more went on television to say the plane was so unsafe they refused to fly it, a small circle of U.S. Air Force experts knew something was wrong with the prized stealth fighter jet.Coughing among pilots and fears that contaminants were leaking into their breathing apparatus led the experts to suspect flaws in the oxygen-supply system of the F-22 Raptor, especially in extreme high-altitude conditions in which the $190 million aircraft is without equal. They formed a working group a decade ago to deal with the problem, creating an informal but unique brain trust.
Internal documents and emails obtained by The Associated Press show they proposed a range of solutions by 2005, including adjustments to the flow of oxygen into pilot's masks. But that key recommendation was rejected by military officials reluctant to add costs to a program that was already well over budget.
"This initiative has not been funded," read the minutes of their final meeting in 2007.
Minutes of the working group's meetings, PowerPoint presentations and emails among its members reveal a missed opportunity for the Air Force to improve pilot safety in the 187-plane F-22 fleet before a series of high-profile problems damaged the image of an aircraft that was already being assailed in Congress as too costly. Its production was halted last spring and the aircraft has never been used in combat.
The Air Force says the F-22 is safe to fly--a dozen of the jets began a six-month deployment to Japan in July--but flight restrictions that remain in place will keep it out of the high-altitude situations where pilots' breathing is under the most stress.
One of the working group's proposed fixes, a backup oxygen system, is expected to be in place by the end of the year. And the Air Force, which blamed the oxygen shortage on a faulty valve in the pilots' vests, says a fix to that problem is also in the works.
Documents obtained by AP show many of the concerns raised in that investigation had already been outlined by the working group that was formed in 2002, when the fighter was still in its early production and delivery stage.