15 December 2011

Report: Pilot Is Blamed for Last Year's F-22 Crash in Alaska

In a long-awaited report, the Air Force blamed the pilot for a controversial fatal crash in the Alaska wilderness last year in the military's most expensive fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor. 

The report raised questions among critics who said the Air Force frequently blames pilots for accidents when there are hardware and software malfunctions that also play a major role.

An Air Force accident investigation board issued a report that said Capt. Jeff "Bong" Haney, 31, was at fault when his F-22 crashed near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson during a nighttime test mission in November 2010.

Investigators came to that conclusion despite finding that the aircraft's air intakes had malfunctioned and caused an automatic shutdown of various systems -- including the main oxygen supply -- which cut off air to Haney's mask.

Read the whole story & draw your own conclusions.

4 comments:

Old NFO said...

Bull... At least in NAVY airplanes your oxygen doesn't get cut off by the airplane... CYA to the max by the Air Farce...

joated said...

I've got to agree with Old NFO. CYA not just of the Air Force but for everyone responsible for this particular plane, the F-22. From the article it sounds like this (oxygen supply cutoff) is/was a known problem yet the planes were cleared to fly.

Matt said...

It's called hypoxia, and for the Air Force to blame the pilot error, then that would mean that all of these F22's going down would be pilot error, which then leads of course to the question of:

"Why is the Air Force is training it's F22 pilots so poorly?"

The Air Force's training is the common denominator here.

DR said...

This is complete bull. The Air Force is blaming a pilot simply to protect their pet project, which has been under unrelenting assault. I am a huge proponent of the F-22 program, but the gremlins will only be sorted out if the Air Force is honest when accidents and malfunctions occur.