An F-22 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida in 2010. Photo: Air Force
The Air Force's F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and their faulty oxygen systems are choking their pilots. One attempt at a quick fix only made the problem worse. Despite this the Air Force, ordered its roughly 200 Raptor pilots to keep flying. Now Maj. Jeremy Gordon and Capt. Josh Wilson, both experienced Raptor fliers with the Virginia Air National Guard's 192nd Fighter Wing, have refused to fly an airplane that they claim is fatally flawed.
In an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday, Gordon and Wilson say they aren't alone. A 'vast, silent majority' of Raptor fliers fears for their lives as their high- and fast-flying jets cause them to black out or become confused in mid-air. Some pilots have taken out extra life-insurance policies. And Air Force doctors 'absolutely' have said no one should fly the $400-million-a-copy F-22 until the jet's oxygen woes are resolved, Gordon and Wilson claim.
But Gordon and Wilson say the Air Force has threatened to fire any F-22 pilot who refuses to fly for safety reasons. The Virginia Guardsmen appealed to Rep. Adam Kinzinger, himself an Air Force pilot, for protection under the federal whistleblower law. The Air Force, perhaps fearing a wider mutiny, has launched a charm offensive aimed at reassuring skeptical aviators and the public.
At the same time, the flying branch is expanding F-22 operations with new, ultra-realistic training exercises and a high-profile deployment to an airbase near Iran. The Raptor's tendency to suffocate its pilot threatens to sideline the jet at a defining moment in its front-line service.
In 2010 Capt. Jeffrey Haney died when his F-22 crashed in Alaska. Despite evidence that Haney had blacked out just prior to hitting the ground, the Air Force officially blamed the incident on pilot error.
But other Raptor pilots reported signs of oxygen deprivation. In February last year Wilson was at the controls of his F-22 on a training flight when he began feeling disoriented. 'I had to really concentrate, immense concentration on just doin' simple, simple tasks,' he tells 60 Minutes. 'And our training tells you if you suspect something's probably goin' on, go ahead and pull your emergency oxygen and come back home. When I did make that decision to pull the emergency oxygen ring, I couldn't find it. I couldn't remember, you know, what part of the aircraft it was in.'
Three months later, the Air Force temporarily grounded all of its Raptors so it could study the problem.
But that five-month stand-down, and a more limited grounding in October, did not result in any major changes to the F-22's on-board oxygen-generating system. 'We didn't find a definitive cause for the incidents,' Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, an Air Force spokesman, told Danger Room. As a stopgap the flying branch equipped every Raptor pilot with a heartbeat monitor and installed an extra charcoal filter in the oxygen generator.
The charcoal filters were faulty and shed residue into the jets' oxygen systems. The Air Force removed them last week after pilots began coughing up what 60 Minutes describes as 'black sputum.'
The blackouts continued. In October Gordon and his wingman both reported oxygen shortages. In all, Raptor pilots suffered 11 black-outs or near-blackouts between October and May, 60 Minutes reports.
But the Air Force kept the F-22s in the air. 'We live in a community where risk is part of our lives,' Gen. Mike Hostage, the Air Force's top fighter commander, said at an April ceremony in Virginia celebrating the F-22. 'Right now, we believe that risk ' although it's not as low as we would like it ' is low enough to safely operate the airplane at the current tempo.'
Hostage said he would qualify in the F-22 and fly it regularly until the oxygen problem is resolved. 'I'm asking these guys to assume some risk that's over and above what everybody else is assuming, and I don't feel like it's right that I ask them to do it and then I'm not willing to do it myself,' he said.
Meanwhile, the cumulative effects of oxygen deprivation are apparent among Raptor fliers, Gordon says. 'In a room full of F-22 pilots, the vast majority will be coughing a lot of the times. Other things ' laying down for bed at night after flying and getting just the spinning room feeling, dizziness, tumbling, vertigo kind of stuff.'
The whistleblowers anticipate more deaths as the Air Force pushes its Raptor crews to continue flying despite overwhelming evidence of the jet's faultiness. 'We are waiting for somethin' to happen,' Wilson says. 'And if it happens, nobody's going to be surprised. I think it's a matter of time.'
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