The pricey F-22 Raptor jet has just gotten back up in the air, but the safety problem that grounded it doesn’t seem to be resolved.
Last year, the F-22 jet was grounded for four months because pilots were experiencing dizziness and other symptoms of hypoxia, which is caused from lack of oxygen. The Air Force looked into possible malfunctions in the planes’ oxygen-generation system, but in September, the planes were cleared for service after technicians were unable to pinpoint a source of the problem.
Yesterday, however, the Air Force’s Air Combat Command confirmed that some pilots — they would specify only “a very small” number — have requested not to fly the F-22.
General Mike Savage, who heads the Air Combat Command, said in a press briefing yesterday that they were taking cautionary measures but would continue to fly the planes. “We don’t have a conclusive answer yet and that’s why we continue to fly with the mitigating procedures, because I can’t learn about the problem if I don’t fly the airplane,” he said.
Since the planes started flying again in September, there have been more than 12,000 sorties and eleven reported instances of “hypoxia-like symptoms.” An Air Combat Command Center spokesman told ProPublica today that a team of two dozen Air Force and outside specialists is monitoring the planes and pilots for both mechanical and medical problems regarding the hypoxia symptoms, but that no “root cause” has been determined.
Before the grounding, there had been at least twelve separate reports of hypoxia-like symptoms, and planes had been limited to flying at lower altitudes. In late 2010, an F-22 pilot died in a crash after he apparently lost control of the plane when the oxygen system malfunctioned. The Air Force’s official report on the incident acknowledges the oxygen system failure but blamed the pilot’s response for the crash.
As ProPublica has detailed, the roughly $70 billion F-22 program has long faced structural deficiencies and cost overruns. The U.S. halted their orders of the jets in 2009, as then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argued the F-22s’ specific capability was not widely applicable in the “spectrum of conflict” faced by the U.S.
The planes have yet to be deployed in combat, though last week a number of them were reportedly sent to the United Arab Emirates.
This article originally appeared on ProPublica and is published under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license.
